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NOTES 



Talks on Teaching, 



GIVEN BY 



FRANCIS W. PARKER, 



Martha's Vineyard Summer Institute, 
July 17 to August 19, 1882, 






REPORTED BY 

LELIA E. PATRIDGE. 




NEW YORK: 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO, 

1883. 



ibiozs 

ISS3 



COPYRIGHT, 1883, BY 

LELIA E. PATRIDGE. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTION: Sketch of Col. Parker's 
Work 

TALK I. — Preliminary 19 

Attitude of the teacher toward the work — Foundation for true 
judgment — Price of success — The Quincy System ; — what it is. — 
False and true motives of education — Definition of education — 
End and aim of the work — What the teacher must know — Study 
of principles indispensable. 

Technical Skill 23 

Vocal culture — Drill in Phonics — Training in reading and talk- 
ing — Cultivation in Singing — Practice in Penmanship — Exercise 
in Drawing — Learning to Mould, in sand and clay — Gymnastic 
drill. 

TALK II.— Reading 26 

Importance of definitions — What is reading? — How we get 
thought — Difference between hearing language, and reading — 
Definition of reading — Preparation made by child for reading — 
What he has to do to learn to read— The child's oral expression — 
Function of oral reading — The use of silent reading — Importance 
of correct habits of reading. 

TALK III.— Reading.— The Word 30 

How child acquires the spoken word — The law of association — 
The mental stimulus — Association of words with ideas — Objects 



iv CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

the best possible stimulus — The object method — The word as a 
whole. (Word method) — Devices to be used — Writing the word. 

TALK IV. — Reading. — Sentence 35 

Resume of previous talk — Another means of association (the 
sentence) — The simplest step first (the word) — The sentence 
method — Child's natural expression to be retained. — Getting the 
thought before giving it — The method of imitation. 

TALK V.— Reading. — Script 40 

The written word — Script versus print — The change from script 
to print — Advantages of the script method — Reasons for use of 
the black-board — Why child changes readily from script to print. 

TALK VI. —Reading. — Phonics 45 

The spoken word ; what it recalls — Explanation of slow pro- 
nunciation — Process of association between spoken and written 
word — Phonetic classification — Reconciliation of phonic and word 
methods — The law of like to like, and its uses — Details of the 
phonic method. 

TALK VII. — Reading. — Application of Princi- 
ples 53 

No new methods of teaching reading — Reconciliation of all, 
forms the true method — Importance of a careful selection of words 
— What words should be taught first — Directions regarding the 
first vocabulary — How to teach the first words — How to teach the 
first sentences — Devices for teaching the next step. 

TALK VIII. — Reading. — Application of Princi- 
ples. (Continued) 60 

General directions for first lessons — Devices for teaching the first 
writing — Purpose of phonic analysis — First steps in slow pronun- 
ciation — Details of further training in phonics — The Sound 
Chart. 



CONTENTS. V 

PAGE 

TALK IX. — Reading. — Application of Princi- 
ples. (Concluded) 66 

Directions for changing from script to print — First three years' 
course — Bad Habits ; how caused — Devices for correcting them — 
General suggestions — Reading script work — The standard of ex- 
cellence. 

TALK X. — Spelling 71 

What is spelling ? — How is it learned ? — Proper function of oral 
spelling — Purpose of spelling — First year's work — General direc- 
tions. 

TALK XI.— Writing 75 

Reasons for teaching writing, early in the course — The forms of 
letters established — Correct training versus individuality — Every- 
thing should be carefully copied — Suggestions as to training in 
technic — Chart of letters, arranged in the order of teaching — 
Movement in writing ; when it should begin — What is to be ac- 
complished — Directions for training. 

TALK XII. — Talking with the Pencil 80 

How to treat child when it enters school — Exercises in talking 
with the tongue — Correction of bad habits, and inaccuracies — New 
idioms, and different parts of speech, taught objectively — What 
should precede talking with the pencil. 

TALK XIII. — Talking with the Pencil. (Con- 
tinued) 84 

Thought before expression — First exercises in original written 
work — Suggestions as to training in capitalization, punctuation, 
etc. — The use of pictures — Object teaching ; wrong, and right — 
Natural objects, as aids to language lessons — Descriptions, and 
stories — Important rules. 



CONTENTS. 



TALK XIV.— Composition \ 89 

Results of previous work — Every lesson a language lesson — Ele- 
mentary and advanced Geography as an aid — History to furnish 
exercises in composition — Arithmetic will train in exact logic — 
How the study of Natural Science can be used — No necessity for 
the spelling-book — When should Grammar be taught ? — Use of 
incorrect forms ; false syntax, etc. — Parsing ; word lessons ; and 
diagrams. 



TALK XV.— Number 95 

What is number ? — Limitation of sense-grasp, and imagination 
— Objections to the object method — What can be done with num- 
bers ? — The fundamental four operations — What is the use of num- 
ber ? — How must number be taught ? — First find cut what the child 
knows — Facts the teacher should know — Calculation should be au- 
tomatic. 



TALK XVI.— Number. (Continued) 103 

Too much attempted the first year — Let child discover facts for 
himself — Teach the four operation sat the same time — Reasons for 
this — Analysis and synthesis — A misunderstood point in Arith- 
metics — The learning of the language of number — Details of the 
step-by-step plan — When should the use of objects cease ? — Advice 
to teachers. 



TALK XVII.— Arithmetic no 

When and how to begin teaching figures and signs — Details of 
succeeding steps to 20 — Parker's Arithmetical Chart ; 20 to 100 — 
When can new numbers be taught without objects ? — Nothing new 
in higher Arithmetic — Needless complexity of this study — Teach 
every new subject, objectively — How to bring about humility — 
Teachers need to study numbers of things — How much analysis ? — 
Pupils should be led to discover thoughts for themselves — No ex- 
planations. We learn to do by doing — Education is the generation 
of power. 



CONTENTS. vii 

PAGE 

TALK XVIII.— Geography 120 

Geography defined— Two parts of study : Structural Geography 
and History— First work ; forming mental pictures of structure — 
The character of continental forms locates and fixes them in the 
mind — Illustration ; the novelist and historian — All that is chang- 
ing should be held in immovable forms — Vertical forms determine 
the character of continents — Also character of inhabitants, and 
history — Study of structure forms the basis of all Physical Sciences 
— Humboldt, Ritter, and Guyot and their work. 

TALK XIX.— Geography. (Continued) 126 

How can unseen forms be built in the mind ? — Imagination and 
its laws — Importance of cultivating this faculty — Power of imagi- 
nation in children — Directions for teaching the first steps in Geog- 
raphy — Work of the first five years in this study — Problems to ex- 
cite curiosity, and lead to investigation — Reasons for teaching the 
continent before the county or state — The wholes of sense-grasp 
and of imagination — Mathematical Geography ; when it should 
be taught. 

TALK XX.— Geography. (Continued) 133 

What is meant by building the continents — What a continent is 
— The Moulding in Geography. Its use and abuse — How to 
teach a continent by moulding — Map-Drawing. Its place and de- 
sign—The order of teaching the continents — What follows this 
study of continental forms. 

TALK XXL— Geography. (Concluded) 138 

The placing of continents in their relative positions — Lessons 
upon soil ; vegetation; and animals — Mines and quarries located — 
The study of man ; races ; customs ; habits, etc. — Governments and 
political divisions — Cities ; industries ; manufactures, and com- 
merce — Latitude, longitude, and climate — What countries should 
be studied— Collateral reading — Illustrative collections of objects, 
and pictures — The great difficulty in the way. 



CONTENTS. 



TALK XXII.— History 143 

What should be gained by study of History — Mental powers 
trained by this study — Use of fairy, and mythological stories — De- 
tails of indirect work from 4th to 7th year — How to take up the 
real study of History — Rules for selection of topics — Teach vital 
and interesting facts ; not empty generalization — Fix events and 
scenes upon clear mental pictures of structure — Detailed directions 
for the teaching of a topic — Dates. What they should be— Cau- 
tion, regarding the teaching of religious and political events. 

TALK XXIII. — Examinations 150 

Examinations a great obstacle to good teaching — What is the 
aim of real teaching ? — What the object of examinations should 
be — The common standard false, and absurd — Illustration of the 
right mode of examining — Too much demanded of children — Ex- 
aminations not the proper test for promotion — Freedom necessary 
for the teacher — The doctrine of l-esponsibility — Give the good 
teachers a chance— Appeal for earnest, honest study and investiga- 
tion. 

TALK XXIV.— School Government 156 

The highest motive of school government — What is real atten- 
tion ? — Two ways in which it may be gained — First try to make 
the subject attractive — Definition of natural teaching — Kindergar- 
ten principles all through education — Contrast between the two 
ideals in education — Teach everything with the stimulus of what 
the child loves — Illustration. Moulding, and Drawing — Demoral- 
izing results of most primary teaching — Necessity of reward or 
punishment under the quantity ideal — Answer to the argument for 
stern discipline, etc. — The purpose of education — No time to spend 
upon made-up obstacles — Work best adapted to the child is best 
loved by him — The appeal to fear— Children study, and read the 
teacher — The question of Corporal punishment. 

TALK XXV.— Moral Training 166 

End and aim of all education — What is character ? — Analysis 
into habits — Formation of habits— Everything done in school has 



CONTENTS. 

a moral or immoral tendency — Importance of training in self- 
control — Three causes that control the will — Child first controlled 
by mother or teacher — When child should exercise its own volition 
— Leading child to know, and do, the right — Habitual wrong- 
doing corrected by habitual right-doing — Necessity of knowing the 
child and its nature — Natural methods defined — Wrong methods 
immoral in their tendency — Natural methods enhance teacher's 
power for right — Attractiveness in subject arouses desire to attend — 
Doing through love of doing forms habit — Fear and force disgust 
and demoralize — Answer to argument in favor of old methods — 
Bad effects of the system of rewards, etc. — Truth should govern the 
will — Train child to seek, find, and use, the truth — Reason weak- 
ened through teaching generalizations — How the habit of seeking 
truth influences the after life — Training of skill without regard to 
thoughts— Effect when percision is the end and aim — Conceit, an- 
other outgrowth of the quantity ideal — The greatest barrier to true 
knowledge — Necessity for constant study on the part of the teacher 
— Careful selection of objects of thought presented— Basis of 
thought and imagination — Study of nature as a foundation for 
spiritual growth — Fill the mind with good, leaving no room for 
evil— Teacher, a constant object lesson to child — Tendency of 
children to read vicious literature— Its cause and cure — Plea for 
supplementary reading — Train children to love work — Natural 
love of child for expression in the concrete— Distinction between 
real work and drudgery — Importance of training in manual labor 
— Last words. 



TO THE CLASS OF '82. 



I GREATLY regret the delay in the publication of 
these long-promised " Notes," but it was unavoidable, 
the causes of it being beyond my control. 

I think you will find, however, that this is no excep- 
tion to the old saying, " Patient waiters, no losers," 
for the revision has been more thorough, and thus the 
" Notes" have become more valuable because of this 
very delay. 

Lelia E. Patridge. 

Chicago, April, 1883. 



INTRODUCTION. 



There is, perhaps, no name more widely known 
among the teachers of this country, than that of Col. 
Francis W. Parker. The results of his supervision of 
the Quincy schools have made him the most talked 
of, if not the most popular educator of our time. 
Whatever may be thought of him or his work — and 
it would be idle to deny that opinions differ regard- 
ing both — he is acknowledged, even by his oppo- 
nents, to be one of those who are destined to mould 
public opinion. Concerning such the world is always 
curious. We desire to know their history, their 
environment, that we may judge their power. 

Remembering this, I have thought that something 
of the man, as well as his methods, might prove 
interesting to the readers of the " Notes." I have, 
therefore, persuaded Col. Parker to give me the salient 
points of his life, more especially those that bear 
upon his career as a teacher, and these I have thrown 
into shape and order in the sketch which follows. 

Francis Wayland Parker, born October 9th, 1837, in 
the town of Bedford (now Manchester), N. H., came 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

of a race of scholars and teachers. His great-grand- 
father on his mother's side was Librarian of Harvard 
College, and a class-mate of Hancock's. His mother 
taught for several years before her marriage, showing 
marked originality in her methods ; and all her children 
were born teachers. 

From earliest childhood he thought and talked of be- 
ing a teacher. It was always his dream, and his one am- 
bition. His father dying, when Francis was but six 
years old, at eight the boy was bound out, according 
to New England phrase, that is, apprenticed, to a 
farmer till he was twenty-one. But nature was too 
strong for circumstance. A farmer he could not, would 
not, be, and at the age of thirteen he broke his bonds, 
and started out into the world for himself. Without 
money, influence or friends, for he had angered his 
relatives by this move, he struggled on for the next 
four years, doing whatever he could find to do, and 
going to school whenever opportunity offered. Then 
he put his foot on the first round of the ladder ; he 
obtained his first school. It was at Corser Hill, 
Boscawen (now Webster), and he was paid fifteen 
dollars per month. 

This venture proved successful, though many of his 
pupils were older than their teacher, and some (he 
says) knew more. The next winter he taught at 
Over-the-Brook, in the town of Auburn, for seventeen 
dollars a month, and " boarded around." From this 
time his services were in such demand in the town, 



IN TR OD UC TION. x i i i 

that he taught, not only the winter schools for the 
next three years, but opened a " select school" on his 
own account during the autumn months. One term 
of teaching in Hinsdale, and one in the grammar 
school of his native village, ended his work in New 
England for several years. 

In the fall of 1859 ne received a call to the Prin- 
cipalship of the graded school at Carrollton, 111., and 
there he remained till the breaking out of the war in 
the spring of 1861. Finding, then, that loyalty to the 
Union was the one qualification in a school-master for 
which they had no use in that vicinity, he resigned his 
position before his committee had fully decided that 
they wished for it, and was immediately offered a 
better one with a higher salary at Alton, 111. This he 
declined, and started for the East, where he at once 
enrolled as a private in the Fourth New Hampshire 
Regiment just forming. He fought all through the 
war, became lieutenant, captain, lieutenant-colonel, 
and brevet-colonel. He was wounded in the throat 
and chin at the battle of Deep Bottom, August 16th, 
1864, was taken prisoner by the rebels at Mag- 
nolia, N. C, and released just as peace was declared. 
Then with the remnant of his regiment he returned to 
New Hampshire, and was mustered out of service 
August, 1865. 

At the call of his country he had left the school- 
room ; now she required his services in the field no 
longer. Where next ? Many ways were open to his 



xi v IN TROD UCTION. 

choice. Military preferment, political office, excellent 
business positions were offered to him at this time. 
But he declined them all. His passion for teaching 
was too strong for these to tempt him. He never 
wavered for a moment, not even when his best worldly 
interests seemed to be at stake. A teacher he was 
born, a teacher he would live and die. He accepted 
the Principalship of the North Grammar School of 
Manchester, N. H., at a salary of eleven hundred dol- 
lars, and held the position for three years. From there 
he went to Dayton, Ohio, in 1869, to take charge of 
the school in District No. 1. Here he had the super- 
vision, not only of the grammar grades, but of the 
primary ; and now his primary work began. He had 
all along had his own way of doing things, and had 
from the very first his conception of how teaching 
should be done. Indeed, he tells, with some amuse- 
ment at his own audacity, how, when only eight years 
old, he rose in school one day and informed the 
teacher that he didn't know how to teach ! Even war, 
with all its horrors, did not wholly absorb his mind from 
its favorite theme. Often, as he sat before the camp 
fire, or lay in his tent at night, he studied how the 
mind grows, and planned many of the methods which 
have since made him famous. It was in Manchester, 
where he used to work all day, and then spend half 
the night preparing for the next, that he first began 
to apply his theories. But in the primary schools of 
Dayton, he felt for the first time that he had begun at 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

the beginning of the great work of mind development. 
At the end of the year he became Principal of the 
Dayton Normal School, a position he held for two 
years, being then elected Assistant Superintendent of 
the City Schools. 

No one who steps out of the beaten track can walk 
long in his new path unchallenged. To desert the 
old, to fail in respect for the traditional, to imply that 
customary ways of doing things might not be the best 
ways, is treason, and high treason. This Col. Parker 
was made to feel, and feel keenly. Though a soldier, 
he loved peace better than war, but he began to see, 
as time went on, that his fighting days were not yet 
over. More and more he found himself antagonizing 
the convictions of his fellow-teachers, as day by day 
he grew away from the time-honored traditions of his 
vocation. They would not agree to his views, he 
could not agree to theirs ; and one party must be in 
the wrong — which was it ? Where did truth lie ? It 
would seem with the majority. But he would not 
give up what seemed to him so clearly right without 
reasons. He would consult the highest authorities in 
the art of teaching, and learn if he were wrong. 
Accordingly, in the fall of 1872, he went to Germany, 
and entered King William's University, at Berlin, for 
a two years' course in philosophy, history, and ped- 
agogics. 

It need not be said that his opinions found con- 
firmation strong in that centre of intellectual develop- 



X V i IN TROD L/C 7 -ION. 

ment ; and he returned to his native land eager for 
an opportunity to put his theories, now fully fledged, 
into practice. When it comes to pass in this world 
that the right man finds the right place, we have a 
way of saying, " How very providential !" as if affairs 
were only occasionally under the care of Providence. 
But it was certainly a singularly happy coincidence 
that just about this time one of the most intelligent 
school committees of these United States, located at 
Quincy, Mass., made a discovery which forced them 
to a conclusion, and that in turn decided them to 
make an experiment. Their discovery was, that after 
eight years of attendance in the public schools, " the 
children could neither write with facility nor read 
fluently ; nor could they speak or spell their own 
language very perfectly. " Their conclusion was, "that 
the whole existing system was wrong — a system from 
which the life had gone out. The school year had 
become one long period of diffusion and cram, and 
smatter had become the order of the day." 

[It is not to be understood by this that the Quincy 
schools were any worse than the average, but merely 
that they had a committee intelligent enough to com- 
prehend their true condition.] 

Acting on this conclusion, they had decided to try 
to remedy matters. But they were busy men, not 
specialists in education, and wise enough to know 
that they were unequal to this difficult and delicate 
work. Thus they had come to the decision to find 



IN TR OD UC TION. x vn 

some one to do it for them. They would try the 
experiment of having a Superintendent of Schools. 
That committee found the man they sought, in Francis 
W. Parker. So Col. Parker went to Quincy, and 
nothing since the time of Horace Mann has created 
such a sensation as his five years' supervision of those 
schools. 

Said his committee in their report after he had left 
them, " For five years the town had the benefit of his 
faithful, intelligent and enthusiastic services. In 
these years he transformed our public schools. He 
found them machines, he left them living organisms ; 
drill gave way to growth, and the weary prison became 
a pleasure house, His dominant intelligence as a 
master, and his pervasive magnetism as a man, in- 
formed his school-work. He breathed life, growth 
and happiness into our school-rooms. The results are 
plain to be seen before the eyes of every one, solid, 
substantial, unmistakable. They cannot be gainsaid, 
or successfully questioned." Said Charles Francis 
Adams, Jr., in his paper on the " New Departure in 
the Common Schools of Quincy," " The revolution 
was all-pervading. Nothing escaped its influence ; it 
began with the alphabet, and extended into the latest 
effort of the grammar-school course. So daring an 
experiment as this can, however, be tested in but one 
way — by its practical results, as proven by the ex- 
perience of a number of years, and testified to by 
parents and teachers. Out of five hundred grammar- 



xvni INTRODUCTION. 

school children, taken promiscuously from all the 
schools, no less than four hundred showed results 
which were either excellent or satisfactory, while its 
advantages are questioned by none, least of all by 
teachers and parents. . . . The quality of the 
instruction given has been immeasurably improved. " 

Such a success as this, heralded abroad by the 
thousands who visited the Ouincy schools, could not 
fail to bring advancement in its train. Accordingly, 
when in 1880 Boston gave the country Superintendent 
a call to " come up higher," and be one of its Super- 
visors, he accepted, and at the expiration of his time 
of service (two years) was re-elected for a second 
term. In October, 1882, Col. Parker received an 
urgent call to the Principalship of the Cook County 
Normal School (just outside Chicago), at a salary of 
five thousand dollars ; and later, the same year, was 
offered the Superintendency of the city of Philadel- 
phia, at a still higher salary. In December he re- 
signed his position in Boston, and yielding to his 
overmastering desire to teach, declined the office of 
Superintendent, which Philadelphia would gladly have 
given him, and accepted instead, the charge of the 
Normal School in Illinois. The first day of January, 
1883, he entered upon his duties as Principal of the 
Cook County Normal School, where he is now work- 
ing with all his characteristic force and spirit. 

With greater opportunities than have ever been 
granted to him before, with an experience broadened 



IN TR OD UC I ION. x l x 

and deepened by the failures and successes of the 
past, with his old-time energy and enthusiasm no 
whit abated, we have faith to believe that the future 
will show results, which shall make what he has done 
in the past seem but the crudest of beginnings. 

THE MARTHA'S VINEYARD LECTURES. 

The first of the year, 1881, Col. Parker received an 
urgent request from the Directors of the Martha's 
Vineyard Summer Institute that he should become 
the head of the Department of Didactics, at their 
next session, beginning in July of the same year. 
Although working already to his utmost, it was a 
great temptation to have a few weeks of his favorite 
pursuit thus offered him in the midst of so much 
supervisory work. Consequently, he decided to give 
three weeks of his much needed summer rest for this 
purpose. The matter being decided hastily, and at 
the last moment, was not properly advertised, and the 
Class in Didactics that first year was small to what it 
would otherwise have been, numbering only fifty 
members. 

The following year, feeling that here was an oppor- 
tunity for wide-spread influence, and much good to be 
done, he returned to the Vineyard. He found that 
his small beginning of the summer before had been a 
true beginning, for not only did many of the class of 
'81 return, but they showed that they had been 
making a study of the great art of teaching, and came 



xx INTRODUCTION. 

back better prepared for the lectures, by their year's 
experience and observation. This season the Class in 
Didactics numbered nearly one hundred and fifty 
members, representing twenty-three States and Nova 
Scotia. Of this number there were forty-seven Prin- 
cipals or Heads of Departments, seven Superintend- 
ents, eleven Kindergartners, and two Institute Lec- 
turers. The course extended through five weeks, and 
the following were the Lecturers and Teachers : 

Principal, COL. FRANCIS W. PARKER, 

*' Art of Teaching." 

Dr. William T. Harris, 
" History and Science of Education." 

Dr. LARKIN Dunton, Head Master of the Boston Normal School. 
" Principles of Teaching." 

Prof. Moses True Brown, Professor of Oratory in Tuft's College. 
" Reading in Grammar and High Schools." 

Prof. H. E. Holt, Supervisor of Music in Public Schools, Boston. 
" Teaching Music to Little Children." 

Prof. Hermann B. Boisen, Author of Boiseris New German Course. 
" Principles of Teaching Modern Languages." 

H. P. Warren, Principal of the N. H. State Normal School. 
" Teaching History." 

PROF. L. Alonzo Butterfield, Teacher of Elocution at the Newton 
Theological Institution, and Associate Principal with Alex. Gra- 
ham Bell, in School of Vocal Physiology, Boston, Mass. 
" Phonics." 



INTRODUCTION. xxi 

Miss Ruth R. Burritt, Principal Kindergarten Training School, 

Phila. 

" How to Teach Form by Moulding Clay." 

Miss Hetta Clement, First Assistant, Coddington School, Quincy. 
" Moulding Geographical Forms." 

Mrs. Mary D. Hicks, Late Supervisor of Drawing, Syracuse, N. Y. 
" Lessons on Drawing." 

Mrs. M. Frank Stuart, Boston School of Oratory. 
" The Delsarte Method — Its Uses and Abuses." 

Miss Lelia E. Patridge, Instructor at Teachers' Institutes, Perm. 
" Gymnastic Drill." 

Col. Parker, yielding to the strongly expressed 
desire of his pupils and fellow-teachers, has consented 
to resume his work at the Institute the coming 
season ; but it will be his last year at the Vineyard. 
His regular work in the West is too arduous and 
absorbing to permit of any outside interests. Besides, 
he cannot afford to fall before the fight is ended ; and 
not even his splendid vitality could long endure the 
strain of such exhausting and continuous labor. 
However much we of the East may regret the loss of 
his inspiring lessons on the great art of teaching, we 
must be willing to forego them after this season, not 
only for his own sake — that his days may be long, 
but for the sake of the little children of the land ; for 
when he dies they lose their warmest friend, ablest 
champion, and wisest benefactor. 

Philadelphia, March, 1883. L. E. P. 



I have carefully examined the MS. of the 
" Notes of Talks on Teaching " prepared by 
Miss Patridge, and find it substantially correct. 

FRANCIS W. PARKER. 

Chicago, III., April 19, 1883. 



NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 



TALK I. 



PRELIMINARY. 



I shall try in these lessons to help you learn more 
of the great art of teaching. We have come from 
widely different sections, and are, for the most part, 
strangers to each other, and may find it a little difficult 
at first to draw together. But a common interest will 
unite us in the bonds of sympathy and good-fellowship. 
We have all seen teachers who were so self-satisfied 
that they seemed— to their own minds — to have rounded 
the circle of teaching, made the circuit of knowledge 
and skill complete, and closed their minds against the 
entrance of all further impressions. Such can never 
learn till the barriers of conceit behind which they have 
intrenched themselves are broken down. There are 
others, the opposite of those just described, who stand 
like empty pitchers waiting to be filled ; they accept 
any and all methods which are popular, or have some 
show of authority. Such teachers are imitators merely, 
and will change when any novelty is brought to their 
notice. No one was ever great by imitation ; imitative 



20 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

power never leads up to creative power. Just here let 
me say that I shall object quite as strongly to your 
taking the methods which I may present, unquestioned, 
as I should to your acceptance of others in which I do 
not believe. 

Again, there are teachers who have some good ways, 
but who are so prejudiced that they have no regard for 
anything outside their own work ; they cling to the old, 
have a ready-made objection to the new, and have ceased 
to examine. Facts are the eyes through which we see 
laws. There is no better founded pedagogical rule than 
that the facts must be known before generalizations 
can be. It follows, then, logically, first, that we can- 
not know which is the better of two methods without 
knowing both ; second, that we cannot know which is 
the best without knowing all ; and, third, that we cannot 
know any method without knowing the principles 
which the method applies. Finally, no one can fairly 
judge a method by seeing it in operation once or twice, 
because the application may not be correct, and that 
cannot be judged unless the foundation principles are 
known. 

The great difficulty in the way is, that teachers are 
not willing to pay the price of genuine success — that is, 
untiring study in the most economical directions — hard 
labor. The demand for good teaching was never so 
great as now, and no matter where you are, if your work 
is good it will attract attention. 

I have been often asked to explain the so-called 
Ouincy system. So far as I have been able to under- 
stand this system, it does not consist of methods with 



PRELIMINARY. 21 

certain fixed details, but rather presents the art of 
teaching as the greatest art in all the world ; and 
because it is the greatest art, demands two things : first, 
an honest, earnest investigation of the truth as found in 
the learning mind and the subjects taught; and, second, 
the courageous application of the truth when found. In 
the talks which follow, the only real substantial help 
I can give you is to aid you in such investigation. All 
the truths that you may learn must be discovered by 
yourselves. In this way alone truth is made a living 
power. Nothing is farther from my present purpose 
than to have you take what I shall say without the most 
careful scrutiny. The great mass of teachers simply 
follow tradition, without questioning whether it be right 
or wrong, and it requires very little mental action to 
glide in the ruts of old ways. 

The work of the next hundred years will be to break 
away from traditional forms and come back to natural 
methods. 

Every act has a motive, and it is the motive which 
colors, directs, forms the action. Consequently, if we 
would understand the educational work of to-day, we 
must know its motive, bearing in mind the fact that 
due allowance must be made for the stupefying effects 
of long-established usage. The motive commonly held 
up is the acquisition of a certain degree of skill and an 
amount of knowledge. The quantity of skill and knowl- 
edge is generally fixed by courses of study and the 
conventional examinations. This is a mistake. In con- 
trast with this false motive of education, to wit, the 
gaining of skill and knowledge, I place what I firmly 



22 NOTES OF TALK'S ON TEACHING. 

believe to be the true motive of all education, which is 
the harmonious development of the human being, body, 
mind, and soul. This truth has come to us gradually 
and in fragments from the great teachers and thinkers 
of the past. It was two hundred ..years ago that 
Comenius said, " Let things that have to be done be 
learned by doing them." Following this, but broader 
and deeper in its significance, came Pestalozzi's declara- 
tion, " Education is the generation of power." Last of 
all, summing up the wisdom of those who had preceded 
him, and embodying it in one grand principle, Froebel 
announced the true end and aim of all our work — the 
harmonious growth of the whole being. This is the 
central point. Every act, thought, plan, method, and 
question should lead to this. Knowledge and skill are 
simply the means and not the end, and these are to 
work toward the symmetrical upbuilding of the whole 
being. Another name for this symmetrical upbuilding 
is character, which should be the end and, aim of all 
education. There are two factors in this process : first, 
the inborn, inherited powers of the mind, and, second, 
the environment of the mind, which embraces, so far 
as the teacher is concerned, the subjects taught. The 
subjects taught, then, are the means of mental develop- 
ment. To aid in the mind's development the teacher 
must know, first, the means of mental and moral growth, 
which are found in the subjects taught ; and, second, 
the mental laws by which alone these means can be 
applied. Knowing the mind and the means, he» can 
work toward the end, which is growth. Method is 
the adaptation of means of growth to mind to be 



PRELIM IN A R V. 2 3 

developed, and natural method is the exact adaptation 
of means of growth to mind to be developed. To ac- 
quire a knowledge of the mind and of the means by 
which the mind may be developed is the study of a 
lifetime. Let us stand with humility before immensity. 
In the beginning, then, the study of methods aside 
from principles is of little use ; therefore, that investiga- 
tion should lead to a knowledge of principles is all-im- 
portant. There are two lines of investigation : the direct 
one is the study of mental laws, or the investigation of 
the facts out of which the generalization of principles is 
made. The second, and indirect way, is the study of 
the application of methods in detail, in order to discover 
through such details the principles from which they 
spring. Let no teacher rest satisfied with a study of 
the mere details of methods, but use them as illus- 
trating and leading back to principles. 

TECHNICAL SKILL. 

In order to train children how to do, we must be able 
to do ourselves • hence the great importance of that 
preparation on the part of a teacher which will result 
in skill in the technics of school work. First of all, the 
voice should be trained, for a clear musical voice is one 
of the teacher's most potent qualifications for success, 
and cannot be overrated. Drill in phonics is necessary, 
not only to gain the ability to give the slow pronun- 
ciation with ease and with natural inflections, but as an 
aid to perfect articulation and pronunciation. That 
every teacher should be an expressive reader is self- 
evident, but it might not occur to all that to be an elo- 



24 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

quent talker is also one of the requisites demanded by 
the New Methods. Faults of tone, modulation, and 
manner are propagated by the teacher, as well as false 
syntax and incorrect pronunciation. Then, too, every 
teacher should be able to sing, and sing well. Music 
fills the air with beauty, and in the school-room every- 
thing should be quiet and musical, with never a harsh 
note. Failing in this the school lacks harmony. 
Writing is the second great means of language expres- 
sion, and should follow immediately upon talking. A 
teacher who cannot write well, cannot teach writing 
well ; for the copy on the blackboard should be well 
nigh perfect. Skill is the expression of power, and 
drawing is the second best way of expressing thought. 
Given the skill to draw, and a teacher is never helpless, 
for then he can teach, even if everything else is taken 
away. Besides, I see a future in drawing which I see in 
nothing else in the way of developing the mental 
powers ; hence the demands made upon teachers for 
knowledge and skill in this art must increase with every 
year. Moulding in sand is one of the best possible 
ways to teach geography, and should precede map 
drawing. Moulding in clay is a valuable means of form 
teaching, and is also the best of preparations for draw- 
ing. Last of all, gymnastics — the training of the whole 
body — is of the utmost importance, not only to in- 
sure symmetrical physical development, but to aid in 
the establishment of good order. Mental action, as you 
know, depends largely upon physical conditions, and 
therefore we should train the body that the mind may 
act. Believing that the skill of the teacher in these 



PRELIMINARY. 25 

directions measures in a great degree his power to do 
good work, 1 have endeavored in this course of lessons 
to provide you with the best of teachers for these 
different departments. Now, a word of caution : time 
and strength are both limited, therefore don't try too 
much ; but that you may become experts in these tech- 
nical matters, let me add, whatever you do try, be sure 
to follow it up. 



TALK II. 



READING, 



In the teaching of any subject it is of great impor- 
tance that we have a clear definition of what we teach. 
Not a definition in words alone, but a definition in 
thought that comprehends what we teach in the most 
definite manner. The question before us is, What is 
reading ? The answer to this question that I shall give, 
is, Reading is getting thought by means of written or 
printed words arranged in sentences. Thought may be 
defined as ideas in relation. Ideas are either sense 
products, or derivations from sense products. We get 
thought, first, by seeing objects in their relations ; 
second, by thinking of things in their relations without 
their presence ; third, by seeing pictures or drawings 
of objects in their relations ; and fourth, by language. 
We get thought by language in two ways. First, by the 
spoken language, and, second, by the written or printed 
language. To illustrate, I put this hat upon the table. 
Here you see the relation of two objects, and you think 
The hat is on the table. I draw or sketch the hat on the 
table, and it brings to your mind the thought The hat is 
on the table. I say, " The hat is on the table," and you 
think the same. I write on the board the sentence, The 
hat is on the table, and that conveys to your mind the same 



READING. 27 

ideas in their relations. Thus we get the same thought 
in four ways ; the only difference in the result is, that 
the thought gained from seeing objects in their rela- 
tions is generally clearer. 

Hearing language is getting thought by means of 
spoken words arranged in sentences. Reading, as I 
have said, is getting thought by means of written or 
printed words arranged in sentences. It would be well 
for us to examine these two operations, hearing- 
language, and reading, in order to see in what they are 
alike, and in what they differ. The arrangement of 
words in sentences, that is the idioms, are precisely 
alike. The thought in the mind, gained either from 
hearing language or reading, is identical. The only 
difference lies, then in the fact, that in one case the word 
is spoken, and in the other it is written or printed. I am 
sure you have said, as I have given my definition, that 
reading is the oral expression of thought. That is oral 
reading. But you will see at once that we may get 
thought — and by far the greater part of reading is con- 
fined to this process — and not give it to others by means 
of the voice. If we comprehend oral reading in our 
definition, we should say that reading is the getting 
and giving of thought by means of words arranged in 
sentences. 

Not less in importance to the definition of reading, is 
the thorough knowledge of the preparation a child has 
made for learning to read, how he has made it, and 
exactly what is to be done in learning to read. This 
may be briefly stated thus : First, a child has acquired 
ideas from the external world by means of his senses. 



28 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

Second, he knows the ideas in their relations, that is, 
he has thoughts. Third, the child has associated spo- 
ken words with these ideas. Fourth, he has asso- 
ciated idioms or forms of sentences with his thoughts. 
Fifth, he has learned to utter these words and idioms 
in order to express his thoughts. This is a brief sum- 
mary of the process of learning to talk. How he has 
done this will be discussed in another place. Exactly 
what the child has to do in order to learn to read may 
be clearly stated thus : The ideas that he has associated 
with spoken words are to be associated with written or 
printed words. If I am not mistaken, this is the sum 
and substance of learning to read. 

Oral reading may be further defined as the vocal ex- 
pression of thought that is gained by written or printed 
words. A child has already learned to express thought 
orally, by means of five or six years' continual practice. 
The emphasis, inflection, and melody of most children's 
voices can rarely be improved. The child should be 
trained in no new way, then, of expressing thought in 
oral reading. Unfortunately the beauty and strength of 
what the child has already gained is entirely ignored, 
and a new and very painful process of oral expression is 
initiated. What is the use of oral reading ? Talking 
enables us to see the thought in the child's mind ; oral 
reading, to the teacher has no other use. Oral reading, 
then, enables the teacher to know whether the thought 
is in the child's mind in its fulness, strength and 
intensity. If, however, the long preparation of the 
child in talking is overlooked, and a new and stumbling 
process of slowly pronouncing words is begun, the in- 



READING. 29 

dispensable function of oral reading is entirely destroyed. 
The thought may or may not be in the child's mind, his 
half-groaning utterances never reveal the fact. 

What is the use of reading ? We return to our defini- 
tion : reading is getting thought by means of written or 
printed words arranged in sentences. Comprehensively 
stated, reading opens to the mind all the learning and 
erudition of the past. To the teacher, however, it is of 
the utmost importance, for reading is thinking, and 
thinking is the mind's mode of action ; and all mental 
development is rightly directed toward action. Study 
of text books, then, if it differ from reading, the differ- 
ence may be found simply and solely in intensity. In 
study the thought gained may be clearer and more com- 
plete than in mere reading. You can judge for your- 
selves then, fellow teachers, of what immense importance 
it is for the little child to form correct habits of reading ; 
and you know by experience how easily incorrect habits 
may be cultivated, habits that will dishearten a child in 
his attempts to read, and make words, instead of being 
clear mediums of getting thought, actual barriers to 
the truth they were intended to convey. 



TALK III. 



READING. THE WORD. 



The child at five years of age has acquired ideas in 
their relations, has associated spoken words with these 
ideas, and idioms with the thoughts or related ideas. 
The process of learning to read, then, must consist of 
learning to use the written and printed word precisely 
as he has used the spoken words. Learning to read 
is learning a vocabulary of written and printed words, 
so that the child may get thought through the eye 
as he has done through the ear. It is a matter of 
great interest to the teacher of little ones to know 
just how the child acquires the spoken words. The 
process is a very simple one ; an object is presented and 
the word spoken. That is, the idea produced by the 
object and the spoken word are associated in one act of 
the mind, which we call an act of association. We all 
know that only by means of a mysterious mental law, 
called the law of association, are we enabled to recollect 
anything. Words are used under this law to recall 
ideas. The word recalls an idea after a certain number 
of repetitions of these acts of association. The same 
way, related ideas are associated with idioms or sen- 
tence forms. 

Every act of the mind is affected by some stimulus or 



READING.— THE WORD. 31 

mental excitement coming either from without or within 
the mind. As a rule, the greater the stimulus the more 
effective the act. The little child, for instance, sees an 
elephant for the first time. The sight of the huge, 
strange beast stimulates the mental action of the child 
to an unwonted degree. The perpetual question of the 
little one, " What is that ?" comes to his lips with great 
fervor. The answer, " The elephant, my child," will be 
likely to remain in its mind forever. The spoken word, 
then, is acquired by repeated acts of association. The 
number of these acts necessary depends in a great de- 
gree upon the stimulus of each act. For instance, 
the greater the stimulus the less the number of acts 
of association required, and vice versa. What we have 
said of words may also be applied to the learning of 
idioms. 

Now, the question is, in learning the new means of re- 
calling ideas by means of the written words, should 
there be the slightest change in the general method ? A 
word is used simply and solely to recall an idea. It has 
no other use. It can be learned only by association 
with the idea recalled ; and the sole question for the 
teacher is, to know how best to associate words with 
ideas. I think we can lay down this one rule as funda- 
mental : in all the teaching, and the study of the art 
of teaching, little children to read ; that that which 
aids directly in acts of association of words with their 
appropriate ideas, aids the child in learning to read, and 
any other method, detail of method or device that does 
not aid the mind in these acts, hinders the child in 
learning to read. To this one rule, then, all our discus- 



2,2 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

sion of the art of teaching reading must return. Every- 
thing must be reconciled with this or it is wrong. 

The first question, then, is, What is the best way of 
bringing about the acts of association with the best pos- 
sible stimulus ? It is plain common-sense to continue the 
method that has developed a fixed and powerful habit 
of learning new words, namely, the presentation of ob- 
jects as the highest and best stimulus to acts of associa- 
tion. This is strikingly true in teaching the first few 
words. The written or printed word is a new, strange 
object. It repels rather than attracts. No stimulus, 
then, can be found in the strange hieroglyphics that 
look more mysterious to the child than Hebrew or 
Sanscrit do to us. Tide the child over his first difficulties 
by using the active energy of a fixed habit. Simply 
repeat that which has been repeated thousands of times, 
present the object (a favorite one of the child's), and say 
the word, not with the lips but with the chalk. The 
child's consciousness is filled with interest for the ob- 
ject, leaving just room enough for the new form to 
find a resting-place. On the other hand, try to fill the 
child's mind with the word itself, and you fill his soul 
with disgust. 

The spoken word has been learned as a whole. 
It is more complex, and therefore more difficult to 
learn than the written word. Every spoken word is 
learned as a whole, and we have no reason to believe 
that the child has the slightest consciousness that the 
spoken word has any elementary parts. The attempt to 
teach him the elementary parts of a spoken word, while 
he is learning to talk, would prove disastrous. Why, 



READING.— THE WORD. ^ 

then, should not the written word be learned as a 
whole ? Why introduce a new process, when the old 
one has been so effectual ? Indeed, there is no doubt 
that any attempt to separate the written word into parts, 
or to combine the parts of a word into a whole, directly 
and effectually hinders the acts of association, and there- 
fore obstructs the action of the child's mind in learn- 
ing to read. The tendency of unscientific teaching has 
set steadily and strongly for the last thirty years 
toward woful and useless complications in details of 
instruction. The return to real teaching is signalized 
by a strong leaning toward simplicity. The height of 
the art of teaching, as in all other lesser arts, is found in 
simplicity. Hold up the object and write the name. 
Say just enough to lead to the proper mental action and 
no more. The fewer words the better. Begin with ob- 
jects. Select those objects most interesting to the child. 
Next to objects I shall place sketches upon the black- 
board, done in the presence of the child, so they may be 
associated with the names of the things drawn, and the 
sentences that express the relations of the objects. 
Third, pictures may be used effectively. Fourth, con- 
versations of the teacher that will bring the ideas to be 
associated with words vividly into the child's conscious- 
ness. Fifth, stories may be told with the same result. 
How long should objects be used ? Until the child will 
actively associate new words with ideas without the 
presence of the objects or pictures of the objects that 
produced the ideas. No teacher who watches the faces 
of her little ones will fail to note when this time has 
fully come. 



34 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

If the principles that I have here given are true, then 
you will have a basis of truth for the discussion of 
the art of teaching little children to read. This method, 
to use a popular but not a correct term, may be called 
the associative or objective method. Learning the word 
as a whole, without trying to fix the child's attention 
upon its parts before it becomes a clear object in the 
mind, is called the "word method." 

The question, no doubt, will arise in your minds, if the 
old alphabet method is entirely laid aside and the phonic 
method is not used at the outset for the analysis of 
words : How is the form of the word fixed in the mind ? 
The answer is a simple one : The best way to fix any 
form in the mind is to draw it. 



TALK IV. 



READING. — THE SENTENCE. 



I will repeat the fundamental principle of the art of 
teaching reading. Learning to read is learning a 
vocabulary of written and printed words. Each word is 
learned by repeated acts of association of the idea and 
the word. That which helps in these acts of association, 
and that alone, should be used in teaching reading. All 
other means are hindrances. I have shown that the 
effectiveness of the acts of association depends on the 
stimulus or excitement to the act. This stimulus comes 
primarily and mainly from the side of the idea. The 
vividness of the idea or mental picture in the conscious- 
ness, with the appropriate word, determines the result. 
The greatest difficulty to be found in the process of 
learning to read is in learning the first few words. The 
habit, so strong in the mind, of learning the spoken 
word, is to be carried over and used as a power in learn- 
ing the written word. The word itself should be 
subordinate and secondary in interest to the child, to 
the idea that excites the mind. The word is to be 
learned consciously as a whole, and any attempt to 
analyze or synthesize it hinders the act of association by 
absorbing the attention. The means used to arouse the 
mind to acts of association, I have told you, are, objects, 



36 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

drawings upon the blackboard, made under the eye of 
the pupil, pictures, conversations, and stories. But 
there is another and still stronger means of association 
after the first few words have been learned, and that is 
the arrangement of words that recalls ideas in their re- 
lations or thought. Every object that we recall or think 
of, is recalled in space. The more interesting the re- 
lation of the ideas one to another, the stronger will be 
the association. That is, it is a great help in learning 
words to learn them in sentences. We do not learn 
the word in order to read the sentence, but we read the 
sentence in order to learn the word. The question may 
here be asked, Why not begin with the sentence, as many 
do, with great success? My answer is, that the first written 
words, as I have said, present the greatest difficulties to 
the child. We can hardly comprehend how mysterious 
the strange forms are to the little one. We may get an 
inkling of the trouble if we have ever begun Greek, 
Hebrew, or Sanscrit. We may recall the fear that came 
over us, when we looked forward to the time when we 
must use the meaningless forms to get thought. The 
successful learning of the first few words, it seems to 
me, depends upon presenting the simplest obstacle to be 
overcome, and in making the child, the little learner, as 
unconscious as possible of the difficulty. The simplest 
step, then, consists in following a fixed and powerful 
habit of the child, by presenting a favorite object, and 
saying with the chalk just what the tongue has so often 
repeated. I have no doubt but that the skilful teacher 
could successfully begin with a whole sentence. My 
point is, that it is much simpler and easier to begin 



READING.— THE SENTENCE. 37 

with the single words. Just as soon, however, as a few 
words have been learned, for instance, fifteen or twenty, 
short sentences should be taught by the objective plan ; 
so that when the child sees the sentence he is able to 
get the thought that it expresses. There are many 
words that mean nothing alone, which should always 
be taught in phrases or sentences. 

We come now to the discussion of oral reading, or 
getting thought by means of written or printed words 
arranged in sentences. A thought is ideas in their re- 
lations, and may be called the unit of mental action. A 
sentence, therefore, is the unit of expression. We can- 
not learn a single word without recalling the idea it ex- 
presses in some relation. You will remember what I have 
said concerning the different ways of getting thought. 
First, directly through the senses, by seeing, hearing, 
etc., objects in their relations. Second, by pictures and 
drawings. Third, by language, both oral and written. 
In all these cases the thought is the same in the mind, 
differing only in degrees of intensity. The written sen- 
tence is simply one way of getting thought. The child 
has already, by long and continued practice, learned to 
talk, and to talk well. One thing above all others I 
wish to impress upon your minds, here and now — do 
not teach him to talk in any other way — that is, when 
he gets the thought by means of the written sentence, 
let him say it as he always has. Changing the beautiful 
power of expression, full of melody, harmony, and cor- 
rect emphasis and inflection, to the slow, painful, 
almost agonizing pronunciation that we have heard so 
many times in the school-room, is a terrible sin that we 



3& NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

should never be guilty of. There is indeed not the 
slightest need of changing a good habit to a miserable 
one, if we would follow the rule that the child has 
naturally followed all his life. Never allow a child to give 
a thought until he gets it. Remember, and keep on re- 
membering, my dear teachers, that the child has learned 
to talk, and that that teaching which mangles this grand 
power is needless and worse than useless. Let the child 
get the thought himself, in the easiest possible way, by 
means of the written sentences. One of the worst ways 
of teaching reading may be called, for want of a better 
term, the method of imitation. Now you will see that 
the valuable act of the mind, the thing to be done, is 
the child's getting the thought for himself and by him- 
self by the means, I repeat, of written words. If the 
teacher reads the sentence to the child, the child gets 
the thought through the ear from the teacher's lips, and 
the one thing he ought to do is prevented. I do not 
wish to be understood that the teacher should not read 
to the child. The teacher should make herself the best 
possible model of good reading, and through her read- 
ing present a high ideal of expression for the child to 
attain. What I wish to impress upon you is, the one 
pedagogical principle that stands above all others — we 
learn to do by doing. Oral reading has one function, 
one use to the teacher ; it is a means of knowing, as I 
have said in a former talk, whether the thought is in 
the mind of the reader, how it is there, if every relation 
is known, and the intensity of the thought felt by the 
reader. This grand function of oral reading may be 
perverted or entirely destroyed. First and foremost, by 



READING.— THE SENTENCE. 39 

not waiting for the child to get the whole thought 
before he gives it. Second, by training the child to 
imitate the teacher's voice, her pauses, emohasis and 
inflection ; and, third, by a useless struggle with the 
parts of the word in forcing analysis before the whole 
word is clearly in the mind. The alphabet method is 
the best possible means of obstructing the mental action 
of the child in learning to read ; too early phonic 
analysis the next. With the child thought has always 
controlled expression. Why should we throw this 
grand power aside, and try to teach a child oral 
expression by means of pauses and imitated inflection 
and emphasis ? The initial capital of a sentence and the 
punctuation have one use — they enable the child to get 
the thought. When the thought is in the mind they 
have no use. You will see, then, that if you follow the 
principle — thought controls expression — much of the 
labor and toil of the teacher, in trying to force artificial 
expression by training a child to pause at commas and 
periods, to raise the voice or let it fall at the end of 
sentences, to give stress when they see diacritical marks, 
is not only useless, but positively injurious and 
nonsensical. 



TALK V. 



READING. — SCRIPT. 



The written word to the little child has no element 
of attraction. It is, on the other hand, a repelling ob- 
ject. I have tried to show how the difficulties of learn- 
ing the first words may be overcome by the stimulus of 
the idea in acts of association. It is a matter of great 
importance to steadily overcome the repulsion oc- 
casioned by the written word. This repulsion will grow 
less and less, and the acts of association will be made 
easier by continued familiarity with the new forms, if 
the interest and the appetite of the child for words is 
sedulously cultivated, through the pleasure that the ob- 
jects and pictures excite. All words are made, as you 
know, of only twenty-six different forms. The less 
the mental action it requires to see these forms, the easier 
will be the acts of association. It is important to im- 
press these forms upon the mind in an easy, natural, 
semi-unconscious way. As I have shown, the best pos- 
sible way to impress the word forms upon the mind, is 
to write them — to make them. We hear the objection 
very often that a child does not learn the letters by the 
new method. He does not learn their names, but he 
learns them by continually making them. What is the 
best proof that any object is clearly in the mind ? A 



RE A DING. — SCRIP T. 41 

word description is weak beside the representation of the 
object in drawing. This brings us to the question so 
often mooted, whether we should use print at the be- 
ginning, or print and script, or script alone. I will try 
and present the arguments in favor of using script alone, 
not denying, however, that script and print may be 
used at the same time with good effect. When two 
or more ways of teaching are presented, all of which may 
be defended by good reasons, reasons that do not 
directly violate a principle, the question of choice then 
becomes a question of economy. If we begin with 
print, it certainly fixes the printed forms in the mind 
by reproducing them on the slates, so that if the teacher 
uses print alone at the beginning, she should train the 
children to make the printed forms. But, making the 
printed forms is not a means of expression that a child 
ever uses after the first few months, or the first year. 
Writing is the second great means of language ex- 
pression. It should be put into the power of the child 
just as soon as possible, in order that he may express his 
thoughts as freely with the pencil as with the tongue. 
This fact needs no argument. Written expression is as 
great a help to mental development as oral expression ; 
and, indeed, in many respects, it stands higher. Written 
expression is silent, the child must give his own 
thought, in his own way ; thus developing individuality. 
The greatest difficulty in all teaching in our graded 
schools is the sinking of the individual in the mass. 
In written expression we find a means of reaching in- 
dividuality through the mass. Why not, then, begin 
at the beginning with this mode of expression that 



42 NOTES OE TALKS ON TEACHING. 

the child must use all his life, and every day of his 
life ? 

Why not teach printing and script together ? Because 
it violates the rule of perfect simplicity. Train the 
child to use one set of forms, made in one way, and one 
alone. In my experience, extending over eleven years 
of supervision of primary schools, I have never known 
the failure of a single class to change from script to 
print, easily and readily, in one or two days. What, 
then, is the use of print at first? What logical reason 
can be given for its use, if the step from script to print 
is so very simple ? The writing of the words by the 
child on blackboard, slates and paper, furnishes a vast 
amount of very interesting and profitable busy work. In 
writing the first word the child begins spelling in the 
only true way. In writing the first sentence the child 
makes the capitals and punctuation marks, and if he is 
never allowed to make a form incorrectly, it will be al- 
most impossible for him ever to write a sentence in- 
correctly — that is beginning it with a small letter, or not 
using the proper punctuation at the end. In writing 
the words, the child follows exactly the method of learn- 
ing the spoken language. Spelling is the precise co- 
relative of pronunciation. The child hears the spoken 
word and strives to reproduce it by his voice. The child 
sees the written word, and reproduces it with his pencil. 
He gets the thought by means of the written word, and 
gives it back just as he gets it — he is talking with his 
pencil. He is ready to tell you any time, orally, what 
he is writing. 

In the first three years' work, talking with the pencil 



RE A DING. - SCRIP T. 43 

may be used as a greater means of learning to read than 
all the books of supplementary reading. When the 
child writes the first word, the unity of all language 
teaching is begun. Getting thought and giving 
thought by spoken and written words should be united 
at the start, and grow through all future development 
as from one root. 

What advantages has the blackboard and crayon over 
the chart and printed book in elementary reading ? 
First, the words are created by the hand of the teacher 
before the eyes of the children, as the spoken word is 
created. Second, the word is written alone in large 
letters, separated from all other objects of interest ex- 
cept the object it names. How different the confused 
mass of black specks upon the printed page. Third, 
the attention of the little group is thus directed to one 
object in a very simple manner. Fourth, words are 
learned by repeated acts of association. The great fault 
with charts and primers is that they do not repeat words 
times enough for the child to learn them. On the black- 
board, on the other hand, these repetitions can be easily 
made. It is of great importance that the first one 
hundred words should be learned thoroughly. Super- 
ficial work is always bad work. From the first, then, 
the child should write every word he learns from the 
blackboard, and just as soon as he is able to write 
sentences the word should invariably be written in 
sentences. 

The child should be trained to read from his slate all 
that he writes. The reason why the change is made so 
easily from script to print used to puzzle me. I only 



44 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

knew that it could be done, but could not tell the 
reason why. Script and print are very nearly allied in 
form. The first print was a crude reproduction of old 
manuscript. Both, indeed, have changed since the 
art of printing was discovered, but the resemblance 
remains. The child, as you know, has a wonderful 
power of seeing resemblances. Like comes to like in his 
mind because his mental pictures are not filled out with 
that which produces the differences. This, to my mind, 
is sufficient reason for the surprising ease with which 
the child changes from script to print. 



-h 



TALK VI 



READING. — PHONICS. 



I propose to speak to-day of the use of the spoken 
word in assisting acts of association between the idea 
and the written word. It is very often urged that the 
spoken word is sufficient to recall its appropriate idea, 
and thereby bring about an act of association between 
it and the written word. That, as the ideas are already 
in the mind of the child, the spoken word alone is need- 
ed to recall them. Those who hold to this doctrine fail to 
understand the great economy of mental action that is 
1 brought about by the stimulus of the object. Were I to 
teach you a foreign language, German, for instance, how 
much quicker and easier you would learn the words if I 
were to present the objects and speak or write their 
names. This is thoroughly understood to-day by the 
best teachers of modern languages. If we adults can 
learn a foreign language so much easier by the object 
method, it can be readily inferred how necessary the use 
of objects is to the little child. When the old habit of 
learning spoken words is carried over into the learning 
of written words, that is, after a hundred or more words 
have been learned, probably the spoken word will then 
be sufficient to bring about the required acts of associa- 
tion. When a child does not need the stimulus of ob- 



46 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

jects, pictures, etc., then their use should cease. Any 
good teacher will not fail to observe when this time 
comes to the child. The spoken word, then, aids in 
recalling the idea, and at the same time names the 
written word. The spoken word is associated with the 
written word, so that it recalls the written, and the 
written recalls the spoken. Deaf mutes learn the written 
words without the intermediate help of spoken words, 
and it is found that with the use of objects these unfortu- 
nate beings learn written words with as much, if not 
greater, rapidity than the children who have perfect 
hearing. Notwithstanding this fact, the spoken word 
has a use in learning to read, but it may be badly mis- 
used. For instance, when it is associated with the 
written word alone, and the written word is not associ- 
ated with the idea. In this case, the reading is not the 
getting of thought, and, therefore, not real reading, but 
simply mechanical word pronouncing without the 
slightest inspiration from the thought. There are 
methods of teaching reading, whose sole aim is to train 
children to pronounce words with little or no regard to 
the thought. To the casual observer the results seem 
surprising. To the real teacher they are the sounding 
of empty words. The use of the spoken word, then, in 
teaching reading, must be to assist in acts of association. 
To use them for any other purpose is a hindrance in learn- 
ing to read. The question, then, is, How can spoken 
words be used to help associative acts ? The spoken 
words have been acquired by the child before he enters 
school. He knows how to make every sound in the 
language, and to combine them in pronouncing, all the 



READING, -PHONICS. 47 

words he knows. He has learned the spoken words as 
wholes, and is not conscious of the elementary parts of 
a word, although he can combine them without the 
slightest hesitation. The spoken word consists of the 
articulation of one elementary sound or a succession of 
elementary sounds. An elementary sound, with the 
exception of the sound of k, requires for its articulation 
a certain fixed position of the vocal organs. Change 
the position of the vocal organs, no matter how slightly, 
and the sound must change. Between a few combina- 
tions of two sounds the articulation continues, produc- 
ing peculiar modifications of sound brought about by 
various positions of the vocal organs that they must 
take in changing from the position required by one 
sound to that of another. If, however, these glides 
were made between each and all of any combinations of 
the sounds of the language, the intermediate sounds 
would be innumerable. As it is, forty sounds are all 
that are given in making the spoken words of the 
English language. In changing, then, from the 
position of the vocal organs required to make one 
sound, to that of another, there must be, except in 
glides, an actual suspension of sound. In pronouncing 
ordinarily, these pauses between sounds are too short 
to be perceptible to the ear. Make these pauses percepti- 
ble, and we do, what I think is wrongly termed, spell 
by sound. As phonic analysis has nothing whatever to 
do with spelling, is oftentimes a hindrance rather 
than a help to English spelling, I prefer to call the act of 
articulating each sound with a perceptible suspension of 
the voice between two sounds — slow pronunciation, fol- 



48 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

lowing the German term — langsamcr ausprache. Now, it 
should be borne in mind, that in reality the spoken words 
alone are pronounced slowly, the written words cannot 
be. It is a mistake to say that certain letters have several 
sounds, several sounds are represented by one letter. 
The process by which a word is made to recall a spoken 
word, or a letter is made to recall a sound, is exactly 
the same as that by which the written word recalls the 
idea — viz., the process of association. When the first 
word is learned, the spoken word is associated with the 
written word. The spoken word and written word 
are learned as wholes. I have tried to show that the 
written word is fixed in the mind by writing it. That 
when one word, for instance, rat is taught and written, 
the word cat can be more easily seen and more easily 
copied ; for the word cat contains two thirds of the 
forms of the previous word. In this way we see that as 
the different forms are impressed upon the mind, the 
repulsion of the word, or the difficulty in grasping it is 
overcome, and successive associations made easy. In 
the same way the spoken word may be associated with 
the written words, so that the written words will recall 
the spoken with greater ease. As the written words 
become more clear in the mind, the separate parts of 
the written word may be associated with the separate 
articulate sounds, so that the difficulties in the acts of 
association may become less and less ; that is, new 
words may be pronounced and known at sight. The 
great danger is, that children may be trained to the skil- 
ful pronunciation of words without knowing them. A 
word is only known when it recalls its appropriate idea. 



READING.— PHONICS. 49 

There are two great obstacles in the way of the success- 
ful teaching of the so-called phonic analysis. One is more 
apparent than real, and that is, the fact that different 
sounds are represented by the same letter in the English 
language. In a purely phonetic language (which, by 
the way, does not exist), each sound is represented in- 
variably by one character. If the English language were 
phonetic, it would greatly lighten the burden of learning 
to read and write. But a careful examination of the 
words learned by a child will show that the difficulties 
are not so great as they are often represented to be. If 
we begin, for instance, with the short sounds, a child 
may learn at least two hundred words that are purely 
phonetic to him. I have calculated and classified the 
words in thirty-nine pages of the New Franklin 
Primer, in the whole of Monroe's Charts, and in 
the first forty pages of my Supplementary Reader, 
First Book. There are 456 words in all : 205 of which 
are purely phonetic, 216 are words whose pronunciation 
is indicated by their form ; and only the 35 remaining 
may be called entirely unphonetic. After a child learns 
this number of words he has formed a fixed habit of 
learning new words, and all active use of primary meth- 
ods may cease. What, then, is the use of burdening 
the child with mangled and twisted print or diacritical 
marks ? Phonics may be used as a great help in teaching 
primary reading, if the natural growth of the child's 
power is carefully followed. 

The second difficulty in teaching phonics is found in 
the apparent opposition of the word and phonic 
method. The word must be learned as a whole, and any 



50 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

early attempt at word analysis simply retards the 
teaching. The struggle to analyze a new word, or to 
build it up from parts, as I have already explained, 
absorbs the attention and prevents the act of associa- 
tion. These two methods, that seem to be in direct op- 
position to each other, may be entirely reconciled by 
closely following well-known mental laws. The child, 
as I have said, knows how to make all the sounds in the 
language in their word combinations. He is not con- 
scious of a single separate element. Obviously, the 
first step to be taken is, to bring these elements slowly 
to his consciousness. This may be done by training 
the child to pronounce words slowly (spell by sound). 
I have found by repeated experiments that the little 
child will understand me when I pronounce words 
slowly in a natural manner, nearly as well as when I 
pronounce in the ordinary way. The child may be 
trained by imitation to pronounce slowly with great 
readiness and skill. This should be carefully done be- 
fore any direct association is made between articulate 
sounds and the word that represents them. 

One of the greatest activities of the mind is the 
coming together of like to like. It may be called the 
law of analogies. It begins, as all good things do, in 
perfect unconsciousness on the part of the child. 
When a child says, "I seed," for I saw, and "I 
goed," for I went, the child is unconsciously fol- 
lowing this law of analogies. The same law is 
in operation when the child spells all words pho- 
netically, without regard to the absurdities of Eng- 
lish spelling. Using phonics, in teaching reading, 



RE A DING. —PHONICS. 5 1 

in the proper way, simply intensifies this law. If the 
word method were used, pure and simple, the child's 
unconscious mental activity would seek out and use the 
analogies of the language, in associating new written 
words with the same sounds he has learned to associate 
with them. When we teach words in phonic order, as, 
for example, rat, fat, cat, mat, sat, pat, this law of 
like coming to like in the mind is made more effective. 
But when at the proper time the articulate sounds are 
consciously associated with the letters that represent 
them, we use this mental activity in the most economical 
way. Great care, however, should be taken not to force 
the growth of this mental action so as to conflict with 
the other and more important law of learning words as 
wholes. These whole words cannot be analyzed until 
they are clear mental objects. The process, then, of 
using phonics may be given thus : First, train the child 
to recognize words when pronounced slowly. This may 
be easily done, if the teacher pronounces slowly in easy, 
natural tones. The greatest obstacle that I have found 
in phonics is the inability of teachers to do this. 
Second, train the child to pronounce slowly by imitat- 
ing the teacher's voice. All this should be done, as I 
have said, before any direct association of articulate 
sounds is made with written words. Third, after a few 
words are taught, let the teacher in writing words give 
each articulate sound as she makes the character that 
represents it. Do not require the children to imitate 
the teacher until they do so of their own accord. 
Fourth, have the children begin to pronounce slowly, 
without even a suggestion from the teacher, the words 



52 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

which she writes. Phonics may be thereafter used with 
great effect in teaching reading. Thus, you will 
observe, that by this process the spoken word retains its 
unity as long as it is necessary, and the way is carefully 
prepared for the conscious analysis of words when the 
proper time comes. This will be indicated by the 
child's own spontaneous action. 

All new words, then, that come within the child's ac- 
quired analogies of sound may be readily associated 
with their appropriate idea with little or no aid from 
the teacher. Give the child the power to help himself 
as soon as possible, and at the same time please remem- 
ber not to violate any known laws of his mental 
growth. 



TALK VII. 

READING. — APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES. 

In this discussion of the art of teaching reading, I 
have tried to explain the principles that underlie the so- 
called object, word, sentence, script and phonic methods. 
Each of these methods has been discovered by teachers 
in the past, and generally each has been applied by 
different teachers as the only true method. Probably 
the exact date of the discovery of each method cannot 
be given, but the youngest of these, the script method, 
is nearly one hundred years old ; and the oldest, the 
phonic, is described by Valentine Ickelsamer, a con- 
temporary of Luther's, in a book written in 1534. No 
one would claim the title of inventor of a new method, 
if they had studied the history of the art of teaching read- 
ing. Each one of these methods was discovered in the ac- 
tion of some mental law. So far as they go, and used in 
their own proper place and proportion, they are all nat- 
ural methods. The difficulty is in using one method to the 
exclusion of all others. It is like using one power of 
the mind and leaving four others inactive. The fact is, 
that the object, word, sentence, script, and phonic 
methods form one true method in teaching reading. 
Each should be used in its own time, place and pro- 
portion, in such a manner as to arouse and strengthen 



54 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

five faculties of the mind instead of one. This recon- 
ciliation of most methods that have been discovered in 
the past, is true not only of teaching reading, but every- 
thing else. We might say that everything now done 
in the school-room, in the way of teaching, is right, in its 
place ; but the trouble is that things get frightfully 
misplaced. Precision, for instance, may take the place, 
and crush the evolution of thought, and thought growth 
may override precision. It seems to me, that the great 
duty of the teachers of this age is, first, to know all the 
great things that have been discovered by the teachers 
and thinkers of the past, and to reconcile them into 
a science of teaching. I shall now endeavor to apply 
in practice what I have given you in theory ; in which 
I trust you will see that all the methods I have given 
can and should be used as one. 

The preparatory exercises that should always precede 
the teaching of primary reading, I will give when I dis- 
cuss the teaching of language. We will suppose that 
the child has had these preparatory exercises, and is 
ready to be taught reading. The first question to be 
settled is, What words shall be taught ? (Learning to 
read, you will remember, is learning a vocabulary of 
written and printed words.) The first general answer 
to this question is, The oral words the child has already 
gained. The idea must always be acquired before 
the word can be. All through the education of the 
child this rule should be carefully followed. Education 
may be said to consist, first, of enlarging the range of 
ideas ; second, in relating these ideas in various ways. 

The value of a word depends wholly upon the 



READING.— APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES. 55 

value of the idea it recalls. It is of great importance 
to select carefully the vocabulary to be taught the child 
during the first year ; and it is of greater importance 
that the selected vocabulary should be slowly and 
thoroughly taught. That is, that repetitions of the 
word should entirely suffice to put the word within the 
automatic use of the child. 

Much time and very good teaching is wasted by not 
following the step-by-step rule, by which everything 
done is thoroughly done. It is far more important 
to teach 20 words well than to try to teach 200 
imperfectly. The first vocabulary selected should con- 
tain about 200 words, to be taught in script on the 
blackboard. In selecting this list of words three things 
should be taken into account. First, the favorite 
words of the child. Those words which would naturally 
arouse most interest in the child should be taught first. 
Second, the words should be arranged in phonic order 
— generally the short sounds are taken first. With 
these words, all the unphonetic words, like where, there, 
etc., that serve to introduce the idioms used by the little 
child. Teaching words in the phonic order, that is, the 
order of vowel sounds, serves, as I have previously ex- 
plained, to intensify the law of analogies on which the 
phonic method is founded. I may say here, that the 
phonic order should not be followed at the expense of 
the interest of the child. Every word and sentence 
should bring up a bright and interesting picture. One 
should not hesitate to introduce any new word for this 
purpose. The first words taught should be names of 
common objects. Now it is true that the objects most 



56 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

common to the child have names in which only short 
vowel sounds occur, such as fan, cap, hat, cat, mat, rat, 
bat, bag, rag, flag, hen, egg, nest, bell, fish, dish, pig, rabbit, 
ship, dog, doll, top, fox, box, cup, tub, mug, jug, nut. The 
second thing to be observed in selecting the list is, the 
words used in the first book or books that the child will 
read. 

No First Reader extant furnishes repetition enough for 
the thorough learning of the words. It is better to- 
select the vocabulary from the first parts of three or 
four different readers. If this is done when the child 
begins the print (after 150 or 200 words have been 
taught in script), he can read with great ease and de- 
light 150 or 200 pages in print. We will suppose, then, 
that the vocabulary has been carefully selected ; that 
the preparatory oral work has been done ; that the 
teacher has selected fifteen or twenty objects, or models 
of objects, to aid in teaching the first few words. The 
pupils have been carefully divided off in groups of five 
or six, according to their mental strength. The work 
would naturally begin with their brightest group. 
(Never tell them that they are bright, however.) The 
teacher is at the board, surrounded by a little group of 
children, who have been made to feel quite at home in 
the school-room, and who are ready and eager for 
any new step, because everything they have done in 
the school-room has given them pleasure. They 
have unbounded faith in the power of the teacher to 
lead them into green pastures filled with the most de- 
lightful shrubs and flowers. The teacher holds up an 
object as she has often done before ; but now, instead of 



READING.— APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES. 57 

giving its name orally, she says, " Hear the chalk 
talk," and slowly writes the word. Let me say here, that 
the articles a, an, and the, should always be written with 
the words, and the article and word should be pronounced 
as one word. Write the name of the object several times. 
Let the teacher point to the word, having put the object 
down, and say to the child, " Bring me a — " point- 
ing at the same time to the word. Let the teacher hold 
up the object and ask, " What does the chalk say this 
is ?" having the pupil point to the word. These exer- 
cises should not occupy more than five minutes. The 
next lesson shows a new object, and write its name as 
before. Let the child take the two objects, one in each 
hand. Let the teacher write the name, and ask him to 
hold up the objects, first one, and then the other, as the 
names are written. This plan may be safely followed 
till ten or fifteen words are taught. In review of 
words, all the names may be written ; let the teacher 
point to the different names and have the pupils bring 
the objects ; then the teacher holds up the objects, and 
lets the pupils point to the names ; and last, have the 
pupils point and give the names without the objects. 

The first sentence may now be taught. Let the child 
take, for instance, a fan in his hand, and be led to say 
" This is a fan." The teacher writes the sentence on 
the board, and says, " The chalk has said what you said, 
what did the chalk say ?" The child, holding the fan, 
says, " This is a fan." Write in place of fan succes- 
sively, all the words that have been taught. Have 
pupils take the objects and read the sentences. Change 
this to that ; place the objects at a little distance from the 



58 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

pupils, and repeat all the sentences as before. Change 
that to here, and repeat all the sentences, having the 
child hold the appropriate object as he reads each 
sentence. Change here to there, and repeat as before. 
Change the singulars to plurals, and change the sen- 
tences accordingly, using these and those, here and 
there. Write questions beginning with where, as, 
11 Where is the fan ?" and let pupils answer orally by 
holding up the object, as " Here is the fan." Put the 
objects on the table, and ask the question by writing it 
on the board — " Where is the fan ?" After this answer, 
write the answers and have pupils read them. When 
a dozen sentences have been written, have the pupils 
read the whole successively. Introduce new words 
as before with objects. Qualities of objects may be 
brought in next ; as " The red box ;" " The white fan ;" 
" The fat rat ;" and reviews made by the schedule 
just given — this, that, these, those, etc. Place objects in 
different positions, as the fan in the hat, the cap in the 
box, and write sentences, describing them. Little ex- 
clamatory sentences may here be introduced with good 
effect, as " Oh, what a pretty fan !" " See the little 
doll!" "Oh, there is the cat!" "The cat is sitting 
up !" " Isn't she funny ?" Directions might be written 
on the board which the pupil reads silently, and com- 
plies with; such as "Come to me." "Sit down." 
"Stand up." "Shake hands." "Run." "Jump." 
"Skip." "Hop," "Laugh." "Cry," etc. 

The next step may be the writing of little connected 
stories on the blackboard. A very good way to write 
stories, or sentences connected in thought, is for the 



READING.- APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES. 59 

teacher to sketch a picture on the board. Let her make 
a plan for a picture containing quite a number of ob- 
jects. Let her sketch one object before the little group, 
talk, and then write sentences about it, and arouse cu- 
riosity as to what the picture is to be. Thus, one picture 
may serve for several lessons. A large wall picture 
may be used in the same way. In all object lessons, 
lessons on plants, animals, and color, the words and 
sentences should be written upon the board. 



TALK VIII. 

READING. — APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES, CONTINUED. 

Some general directions to be followed in teaching 
these first lessons may be of service. I will give them 
here. 

i. Carefully introduce each word which of itself 
recalls an idea, by first presenting the object, sketch or 
representation of the object, or by bringing the picture 
of it vividly to the child's mind by means of conversation 
or questioning. 

2. All words that do not recall ideas except in their 
relations, should be taught in phrases or sentences. 

3. Try to make every thought and its expression real 
to the child, and when it can be done, suit the action to 
the word. 

4. Be sure the child has got the thought before you 
allow him to make an attempt to give it. 

5. Have the child get the thought by means of the 
written words, and not by hearing the sentence read. 

6. Do not teach emphasis, inflection and pauses by 
imitation. Thought will control expression. If the 
thought is in the child's mind in its fullest intensity, 
the expression will be appropriate. 

7. Train children to read in pleasant, conversational 
tones, free from harshness, monotony, or artificiality. 



APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES, CONTINUED. 61 

8. Never allow the children to read carelessly, or to 
guess at the words. 

9. To arouse a desire for new words, and a love for 
the reading lesson, observe the following rules : 

1. Teach the words very slowly at first. 

2. Put the words taught into many different 
sentences. 

3. Write short sentences, and then make very slight 
changes in them — generally of a single word — in order 
that the children maybe successful every time they try 
to read a sentence. 

4. Wait patiently until they grasp the thought, and 
if they are dull be very patient. 

5. Have always a bright picture behind each word or 
sentence, which the child shall see vividly with his 
mind's eye. 

The children should be trained to write on their slates 
the first words they learned from the blackboard. 
Several devices may be used for this. First, the chil- 
dren, following the teacher, may write the word in the 
air. Second, they may trace the word. Third, they may 
write the word line by line as the teacher writes it. 
(The teacher, by the way, should be an excellent 
penman.) Fourth, the children may write the word 
without any help from the teacher, copying it from a 
large and well-nigh perfect copy on the blackboard. 
The slates should be ruled. The same word may be 
copied several times. No matter how badly the child 
writes the first word, praise him if he has tried, and do 
not discourage him if he has not tried. Imbue him 
with your own faith that he can do it. When the 



62 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

sentence is written, have him write the sentences in the 
order I have given for the teaching of sentences. Be 
sure that he always begins the sentence with a capital, 
and uses the correct punctuation mark at the end of the 
sentence. Have the pupils read everything they write. 
Use short sentences at first. Never allow a child to 
read a sentence till he has the thought in his mind, and 
never allow him to express the thought in any other 
way than by talking. If he does not talk well train 
him to do so, orally, by object lessons. Introduce all 
new idioms in the same way. Repeat the words until 
you are sure they are thoroughly known. 

The use of the phonic method may begin the first day 
the child comes to school, with the phonic analysis of 
the spoken word, which I prefer to call slow pronuncia- 
tion. The purpose of this exercise is to bring distinctly 
to the child's consciousness the separate sounds of 
which the spoken word consists, and to give him such 
practice as will enable him to utter all the etementary 
sounds of the language purely and easily. But no 
attempt should be made at this time to associate these 
elementary sounds with the letters that stand for them. 
That comes later. The child should first become ac- 
customed to hear the separate sounds and to utter them ; 
and the exercises for this purpose should be among the 
first given- to the child, and be carried on side by side 
with the oral language work from day to day. I will 
describe in detail the first steps of this work. When a 
few exercises in the repetition of sentences have been 
given, the teacher may, without changing her tone of 
voice, pronounce slowly (spell by sound) one of the 



APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES, CONTINUED. 63 

words in a given sentence. For instance, the teacher, 
pointing at the clock, says, " There is a c-l-o-ck." The 
pupils will repeat the sentence as before, without hesi- 
tation. Or the teacher may say to the children, " Touch 
what I name : n-o-s-e, m-ou-th, f-a-ce, de-s-k," and the 
pupils will perform the acts promptly if tJie teacher does 
not change her tone. Then pronounce single words slowly, 
and ask pupils to tell what you say. Pronounce whole 
sentences slowly, and ask the pupils to repeat them in 
the ordinary way. Direct pupils to " s-t-a-n-d u-p ; 
s-i-t d-ow-n, etc. As soon as they have become accus- 
tomed to hearing the slow pronunciation say single 
words slowly and let them imitate. (One sound may be 
given at a time, the pupils repeating — as, " m," " w," 
"ou," "#//," " th," "//;.") It is not well to let the 
pupils pronounce a word slowly and immediately pro- 
nounce it in the ordinary way, as in a spelling exercise, 
because they should have the feeling that when they 
have once uttered the sounds they have pronounced the 
word. After this, pronounce words in the ordinary 
way, and ask the pupils to pronounce the same words 
slowly. Let pupils pronounce slowly any words that 
they may think of. Those children who have defects in 
articulation should have special drill. To assist them in 
uttering the sounds correctly, the right position of the 
vocal organs should be shown. Words mispronounced 
should be corrected by imitating the teacher, and by 
repetition until the correct habit is formed. The 
preliminary exercises, both in oral language and in 
phonics, should be carefully graded, beginning with 
those which are very simple. There should be frequent 



64 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

reviews, and the exercises should be short — five minutes 
at first, and never at any time more than ten minutes. 
Practice on the sound chart is of great service. Begin 
by articulating each sound separately, and asking the 
pupils to imitate you. Each sound may be repeated 
once or twice or three times, both slowly and in quick 
succession, the pupils imitating. In this exercise the 
sounds may be given in the order indicated in the chart 
which is given below, but this chart should not be 
written on the board at first, not until it is needed for 
the purpose of associating the sounds with the letters in 
teaching reading. 

SOUND CHART. 

Consonants. 



^^ -n- <n-^< 




/ 



en 



y 



/ 



v vn> & wis 



t€A?l w 



applica tion of principles, continued. 65 
Vowels. 

SHORT SOUNDS, 

*z & t> & -W it (as in pull) 

NAME SOUNDS, 

LONG SOUNDS, 

t& ■ate -&& &i> -a-M- 



TALK IX. 

READING. — APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES, CONCLUDED. 

When 150 words or more have been taught, write 
a nice lesson on the blackboard in script, and have 
the pupils read it ; then, after the day's session, 
erase the script and print the same lesson in the same 
place. Call up the pupils the next morning, and have 
them read the lesson. Do this two or three times, and 
the pupils are ready for the chart or a book. It is better 
to take the chart first. In my experience of several 
years in changing many classes from script to print, this 
simple process has sufficed. One rule should be strictly 
followed. Never point out or allude in any way to the 
difficulty in learning print. You should have, be- 
sides a good chart like Monroe's or Appleton's, at least 
five or six sets of First Readers. They are very cheap, and 
you can induce your committee to buy them, providing 
you do good work. Read one book until the sentences be- 
come difficult, and then take another. (Never let the 
children point to words with their fingers, and train 
them from the first to find their places for themselves.) 
Two years at least should be spent with the average 
child in learning to read First Reader reading, and the 
third year may be profitably spent in commanding 
Second Reader reading. There is immense economy in 



APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES, CONCLUDED. 67 

going very slowly. If the primary work is thoroughly 
done, there will be little or no'need of teaching reading 
as reading after the fourth year. 



BAD HABITS. 

I am quite sure that many of you have asked the ques- 
tion, to yourselves at least, while I have been explain- 
ing the principles and methods of teaching primary 
reading as I understand them, What shall we do with 
children whose teaching has been all wrong from the 
beginning ? Who have been taught by the alphabet, 
phonic, phonetic, or word methods without the life- 
giving principle of the thought? Who struggle with 
each particular word in a painful way, and drawl out 
the sentences as if there were no beautiful pictures behind 
them ? Who have been led through a dreary waste of 
empty words in a harsh, unnatural manner ? What shall 
we do with these children ? you ask. It is a very 
difficult question to answer, for two or three weeks' 
wrong teaching will leave their scars in the child's 
mind forever ; crippling every action, and obstructing 
every step. The elocutionists, by scores, reap a rich 
harvest from the bad teaching in primary schools. The 
trouble with the voices generally is, that the natural, 
easy, pleasant tones of the child are changed to harsh, 
unnatural utterance. Something may be done indeed 
for these unfortunate victims. First, I would say, no 
matter what grade the children may be in, put them 
into the easiest possible reading, even if you have to 
begin with the First Reader. Select the most interesting 



6S NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

and the most dramatic pieces. Dialogues, brisk, sharp 
dialogues are very good. Drop oral reading for a 
time, and lead the children to see vividly the picture 
that lies behind the words. Have them tell you in their 
own language what they see in the word-pictures. 
When they are very much interested, and are talking 
with great freedom, ask one to read a short sentence. 
The pupils will feel the shock (if the teaching be skil- 
fully done) from cheerful, interesting conversational 
tones, to dull, prosy word-pronouncing. Thus you can 
slowly lead them to form new ideals in reading. Your 
whole mind as a teacher should be concentrated on the 
one great thing of leading your pupils to get the 
thought, or seeing mentally the picture. If you hold 
steadily to this one purpose, you may be able to lead 
them to read naturally, It is a good plan to question 
them sharply upon the sentences they are reading. Take 
a paragraph like this, for instance : " Five little peas in 
a pod ; they were green and the pod was green, so 
they thought all the world was green, and that was as 
it should be." And then question, thus : " Where were 
the peas?" "How many peas were there?" "What 
kind of peas were they ?" " What color were the peas ?" 
" What color was the pod ?" " Because they were 
green, what did they think ?" The pupils can answer 
correctly, only by the closest attention to the thought 
expressed by the paragraph. Ask them occasionally 
to read a whole sentence. In this way children may be 
led out of the wilderness. Remember, also, to give 
pupils a great deal of interesting reading adapted to 
their vocabulary and thought. 



APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES, CONCLUDED. 69 
SUGGESTIONS. 

Two kinds of reading exercises, at least, should be 
given to the pupils. First, exercises in which every new 
word is carefully taught upon the blackboard, before the 
lesson in the book is read. Second, tests in which pupils 
try to read new selections without preparation. These 
tests should be frequently given — once a week at least. 
The same general rules should be observed in teaching 
reading in books. Do not let the child read a sentence 
aloud until he knows its words and its meaning. If the 
sentence is long he should be allowed to express the 
thought by phrases or clauses. As a rule, do not let 
the pupils in a class know who will be called upon to read 
next. Do not give the thought to the pupils orally, 
but let them get it for themselves. Do not require 
them to read the same lesson over and over again, lest 
they lose their interest in it. It is a good plan to have 
the pupils close their books and tell in their own words 
what they have read. In the second year, when 
composition has been well begun, require pupils to 
write one thing they remember of what they have read ; 
then two things ; three things ; and finally let them 
write the whole story as they remember it. Ask them 
to read orally the sentences, descriptions, and stories 
they write. A large number of sentences, plainly written 
on slips of paper, or cardboard, may be successfully 
used. Give each pupil a slip. If one pupil reads a 
sentence correctly, give him another slip to read. For 
busy work, give pupils slips to copy, and let them read 
what they have copied. Let pupils take a number of 



70 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

slips and arrange them for busy work, into a little 
story. Then let them read the story from the slips, or 
read it after copying it upon their slates. Single words, 
written or printed upon cardboard, may be put together 
into sentences and read. When the teacher finds, by 
false emphasis or wrong inflection, that the thought has 
not been correctly apprehended by the reader, questions 
may be used with good effect. By this means the 
attention of the pupils will be turned directly upon the 
thought, and their answers will be given with natural 
tones and expression, as in talking. Gradually they may 
be led to utter the whole sentence with expression. 

Reading and composition should be taught together, 
the one assisting the other at every step. Let pupils 
read what they write from a copy, from dictation, and 
in composition. If pupils are trained, as they may be, 
to express thought correctly and easily in writing, their 
compositions may be made as profitable as supplemen- 
tary books in teaching reading. Let pupils read one 
another's compositions. In testing the script work, the 
list of words taught may be rapidly written in sentences 
and short stories. If the pupils can readily read these, 
the teacher may feel confident that the words have been 
well taught. In book-reading the tests should be from 
books that pupils have never read. Before reading a 
paragraph aloud, a short time should be given the class 
to read it silently. Finally the standard of excellence 
is indicated by these two questions. First, has the 
reader correctly apprehended the thought ? Second, has 
he used correct pronunciation, distinct articulation, and 
natural tones ? 



TALK X. 



SPELLING. 



Reading and spelling should come first in the child's 
school-life, so as to finish them, and get them out of the 
way. If the preparation is thorough, and the teacher 
skilful, not a great amount of time need be given to 
either. To continue the teaching of spelling, as is usu- 
ally done, through all the years of a common-school 
course is a wasteful expenditure of time and strength. 
"What is spelling ? Spelling is making the forms of words 
correctly, it is writing correctly, and should include 
capitals and punctuation. Oral spelling is not spelling 
per se, it is a description of the word. Spelling is the 
co-relative of pronunciation. I hear a word pronounced 
over and over till I can give it back. I see a word spelled 
over and over till I can give it back. The only difference 
is, that spelling is the written or printed form, and 
pronunciation is the spoken. We learn to do a thing 
by doing it ; by doing it repeatedly ; by doing it right 
every time ; by doing it until it is well done. It follows, 
then, that we learn to make a word by making it ; to 
make it accurately by making it accurately ; to make it 
easily by making it many times. In order to know how 
a word looks we must see it, and the best means of 
seeing a form is to draw it ; therefore drawing (or 



72 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

copying) words is the best means of receiving distinct 
mental impressions of written words. If I spell a word 
orally, the names of the letters recall their forms and 
you combine them in your imagination. It is just as 
absurd to try to learn drawing by oral description, as it 
is to try to learn how to spell a word from hearing it 
spelled orally. The proper function of oral spelling is 
to describe word forms already in the mind ; not to 
bring them into the mind by acts of imagination. The 
most natural and economical way of learning to spell, 
is to write words until we can write them automatically. 
What is the purpose of spelling ? During the first year 
it is entirely to prepare for composition or " talking 
with the pencil." Indeed, all spelling is for the sake 
of composition, and it has no other purpose. The words 
first taught on the blackboard in reading, and the com- 
monly used and constantly recurring words of the child, 
in short, the script vocabulary, should be the words 
first spelled. Bear in mind the fact that word forms 
sink into the mind very slowly, and that patient waiting 
and working is especially required just here. Make 
every step with the small child a success, otherwise you 
may disgust the mind with its failures. You must wait 
for idea growth, which cannot be forced. Therefore do 
not have a child reproduce words without a copy during 
the first year. Spend this time in preparation for 
talking with the pencil. Training in talking with the 
tongue is one of the best ways of preparing for this 
work. If this be properly done, the words will drop off 
the pencil as easily and naturally as they drop off the 
tongue. Faith has a great deal to do with results. It 



SPELLING. 73 

is a great element in successful teaching, as well as 
humility. Accept crudities. The best thing which the 
child can do is always excellent. You may take the 
hand and help the child, or allow them to trace the form, 
but I like best to let them work out their own salva- 
tion. Get to sentences as soon as possible, and after 
that keep to sentences, for they are the written forms of 
thought expression, and the stimulus of the thought 
enables the child to recall the word -forms in writing, 
just as it does in reading. Do all this work easily and 
slowly, and in the doing of it let the child alone and 
don't fuss with him. If a child makes anything wrong, 
rub it right out, make it a sort of dissolving view. 
Have him acquire the power of copying from the black- 
board with perfect accuracy any sentence he can read. 
Never accept any careless work. Don't scold, but let 
the work vanish under the sponge with quiet celerity, 
and have the child do it over. A better vocabulary can 
be gained by writing than by reading. Form, during 
the first year, a nucleus vocabulary of written words, so 
distinctly fixed in the mind that they can be reproduced 
instantly, without copy and with perfect accuracy. 
Train children to know when they can see a word men- 
tally, and when they cannot. In other words, have 
them know when they don't know. Say to them, 
" Don't write that word if you don't know it," but 
never allow them to guess. Every guess brings before 
the child a wrong form, and as only one is right the 
wrong are in a majority. I would never allow a child 
either to see or to hear any wrong forms. When they get 
into the High School they may come in. There will 



74 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

be plenty of time for false syntax then. When a word 
is spelled wrong, don't explain, say nothing, except 
perhaps, " You didn't see right," and erase it at once. 
Cultivate constantly the child's desire to do work well, 
and that desire will absorb all his energies, leaving no 
time for idleness or mischief. In dictating, read the 
sentence in your best voice, and read it but once. Pupils 
should be trained to hear perfectly, as well as to read 
expressively. When they can write readily and accu- 
rately from dictation, begin to train them to talk with 
the pencil. As soon as this is accomplished, all spelling 
per se may cease, and this branch of study be taught in 
composition. They should be able from this time for- 
ward to write page after page without a mistake in spell- 
ing, and with capitals and punctuation marks correctly 
placed. 



TALK XL 



WRITING. 



I have called your attention to the fact that the second 
great means of expression, i.e. by writing, should be 
placed in the power of the child just as soon as possible 
after he enters school. One great advantage of written, 
over oral, work, is that the written enables the teacher 
to get at and develop the individuality of the child. 
In oral lessons, the answers of bright children are con- 
stantly copied and imitated by others. Whereas, in 
written composition each child must express his 
thoughts for himself and by himself. By means of the 
command of writing, the child can be trained to 
do a great deal of busy work, thus keeping his mind 
and hand constantly employed. The third reason for 
teaching writing very early in the course is, that the 
work necessary to the command of good legible hand- 
writing may be entirely finished ; and the time hereto- 
fore taken throughout the eight or nine years for 
writing, may be used for something more profitable. 
Writing may be kept in the best condition throughout 
the whole course, if language is properly taught, and 
the rule, " never allow any careless work," closely 
followed. 



J 6 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

There are two things to be acquired in writing : First, 
the forms of letters. Second, movement with the pen. 
The conventional forms of the letters has been establish- 
ed by the highest authorities in writing in this country. 
All the systems in our schools have substantially the 
same forms. The slant of letters (between 51 and 
52 degrees) is very nearly identical in all. It is not 
my purpose to discuss whether these forms are right 
or wrong. It is true that when pupils enter the upper 
primary and grammar grades, they are trained to make 
these established forms. It is a great saving of time 
and toil to make these forms right in the beginning, so 
they will never have to be changed. Allow children to 
display what is called their individuality at the start (that 
is to write any way and every way), and it is much more 
difficult to train them into good handwriting when they 
take the pen, than it would be if they had never written 
at all ; many claim that fixed forms of writing injure 
the child's individuality, or destroys the character. dis- 
played in writing. As well might we say that the child 
should be allowed to pronounce words as he pleased, as 
the fixed pronunciation acquired by imitation of cor- 
rect standards would seriously affect his individuality. 
The most potent reason why teachers do not train chil- 
dren to write correctly is, that they cannot write well 
themselves, and will not take the trouble to learn. 
Teachers should train themselves by constant and care- 
ful practice to write with a great degree of perfection 
on the blackboard, so as to give the children a good 
ideal toward which they can work. In this question of 
character in writing, there is one rule that teachers 



WRITING. 7 7 

would do well to follow ; in writing as in all other 
things, — precision precedes ease. That is, let the 
established form be thoroughly acquired, and then, 
when the child has formed a character, that character 
will go into the writing. The painful attention now 
required to decipher the manuscript of most great men 
and women could be given to something else more 
beneficial. 

The foundation of spelling should be learned entirely 
by writing. As we have shown in the application of 
the principles of teaching reading, every word that the 
child learns from the blackboard should be carefully 
copied on the slate, or paper. These copies, as I have 
said, should be written with exceeding care. At the 
same time technical writing should begin. In this there 
are certain elementary principles that are the key-notes 
of the whole. Find them and follow them, and you are 
certain of success. Begin with one letter and stay 
upon that letter till it is learned. The child must 
have the ideal to follow, and that comes slowly into the 
mind through the eye. Begin with this fundamental 
form, found in the first letter taught, and work on until 
you get it, even if it takes a year or two years. The 
children will not tire till the teacher gets tired. Have 
the standard, the ideal clear, and they will work to- 
ward it patiently. Get them to master the foundation 
form, which is also the simplest, and then take the 
next shortest and easiest step. I have always taken 
the small letter i as my fundamental form, and have 
taught the writing of the alphabet in the following 
order : 



78 



NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 



^y^yy /t4rs7/^y/zr/n//?n/ 





Do not allow the children to try a new letter till they 
have mastered the one upon which they are working. 
In this way you will teach writing once for all, and 
there will be no need of pursuing it as a study in the 
grammar grades. 



WRITING. 79 



MOVEMENT IN WRITING. 

Pen writing should be taught just as soon as a child 
has thoroughly acquired the forms of the letters. It 
should begin, certainly in the third year, and may begin 
in the second. This is a purely gymnastic exercise, and, 
like all gymnastic exercises, position and movement 
should be acquired by the greatest precision and accu- 
racy. The simple thing to be accomplished in pen writing 
is, that a perfectly smooth line may be made on the paper 
by both nibs of the pen. Give very few directions, and fol- 
low them strictly. Erect, easy position ; both feet square- 
ly planted on the floor ; knees at a little more than right 
angles ; forearm on the table ; elbow never drawn back 
of a right angle. Slide on the nail of the fourth or ring- 
finger. Let the pen rest in the pen fingers (the thumb 
and first two fingers), the pen-holder opposite the 
knuckle. Give a great many simple exercises in move- 
ment. It is a good plan to perform these exercises to 
rhythmic movement, regulated by piano-playing. It is 
of little use to have one position and drill for these 
gymnastic exercises in writing, and to have another 
and entirely different one in the regular writing, com- 
position, etc., of the pupil. A few months' thorough 
work in position and movement, and then rigidly hold- 
ing pupils to the same in all their writing, will give 
each child an excellent hand-writing, unless some phys- 
ical difficulty intervenes. 



TALK XII. 

TALKING WITH THE PENCIL. 

When the child enters the school-room, he comes into 
a new world, and should bring all that is good and 
pleasant in his old world with him. The strange sur- 
roundings, the new faces, banish from his consciousness 
almost everything but wonder and fear. If to this is 
added a teacher strong in discipline, who would put 
the pupil as soon as possible in the well-worn grooves of 
order, it is likely that fear and consequent timidity will 
be the controlling power in the child while he is in 
school. On the other hand, a warm, affectionate greet- 
ing, a cordial shake of the hand, and something to do 
or see that is pleasant, from the moment that he comes 
into the school-room, will drive away his fears, and 
allow his own nature and his own knowledge and skill to 
have free course. Give a child something to do the mo- 
ment he enters the school-room. A piece of chalk to 
work on the board, a slate and pencil, a pile of blocks, 
anything to attract his attention. Lead the child to 
talk as freely in the school-room as he does at home. 
He has learned idioms, pronunciation, accent, use of 
language, by imitation. Continue this process of 
imitation by exercises in imitating the voice of the 
teacher. Have him pronounce sentences, suiting the 



TALKING WITH THE PENCIL. 81 

words to the action, thus, — teacher stands before 
the class and says (holding up her right hand), 
" This is my right hand," the children do the same ; 
"This is my left hand," "I can stand up," "See 
me stand up," " I can run," " I can walk/' " I can 
jump," "I can skip," etc.; always uttering the word 
as the action is performed. Then have pupils review. 
Ask them how many things they can do ; and have 
one pupil after another perform acts, and tell at the 
same time what they are doing. Let the teacher point 
to objects and say, " There is the clock," " There 
is a picture," and have the pupils imitate her. Use 
here, there, this, those, in the same way. Place objects in 
different positions, and have pupils tell where they are. 
Introduce the easiest object lessons. Lead pupils to tell 
what they see, in the simplest possible way. Plants, 
stuffed animals, and other objects of the kind may be 
used with good effect. Lessons in Form and Color, and 
in fact all the lessons laid down in the Manuals of Ob- 
ject Teaching, may be used as helps for the teacher, if 
she allows the child to see for himself, and use his own 
language in talking. Pictures may be used in the 
same way. The great purpose should be to train the 
child to talk freely and correctly. It is a good plan 
to note down all the idioms a child has at his com- 
mand. Faults in pronunciation should be corrected by 
repetition of the right pronunciation. Faults in articula- 
tion should be carefully corrected, by leading the child 
to place the organs of speech in the proper positions. 
Until the child talks with a good degree of freedom, 
little or no effort should be made to change the incorrect 



82 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

use of language. After this important period is passed, 
pupils should not be allowed to use ungrammatical 
forms. The simple remedy for inaccurate habits of 
speech is to give the child many opportunities to use 
proper sentences. This should be done almost invari- 
ably with objects. If, for instance, the child uses is for 
are, lead the child to talk about numbers of objects be- 
fore him, using the word are. You will remember that 
I said that all new idioms should be learned in the oral 
language, and not in the written. All the modifications 
of subject and predicate may be taught objectively. 
For instance, the adverbs and adjectives. Objects may 
be placed in different positions, — for example, a hat upon 
the table, — and the question asked," Where is the hat ?" 
All the prepositions may be taught in this manner. De- 
grees of comparison may be taught by comparing ob- 
jects. " This is a little block," " That block is larger 
than this," " This block is the largest." Adjectives 
may be taught by leading the child to see the qualities 
of objects. 

When the child or a group of children has been 
trained to observe attentively, and to talk fluently, the 
work of teaching Reading may profitably be began. 
It is generally an extravagant use of time to begin 
Reading before this power is acquired. When teachers 
fully comprehend that education is the generation of 
power, they will know better how to adapt the steps of 
progress to the mind's ability. Haste makes a terrible 
waste, when it consists in taxing the child's strength in 
an undue degree. I have given in a former talk the 
method by which I would teach Spelling. The first year 



TALKING WITH THE PENCIL. 83 

should be spent in training the child to copy (in sen- 
tences) all the words he learns in reading, with absolute 
accuracy. The beginning of the second year dictation 
may be given. I wish to repeat here two rules for 
Spelling, that should be invariably followed. First, train 
the children to know when they don't know a word. 
The teacher should write words which the children do 
not know on the blackboard, until they are able to use 
the dictionary. Second, never allow a child to write a 
word incorrectly, or see a word incorrectly spelled, if it 
be possible to prevent it. When it is found that pupils 
can write from dictation all the words they have previ- 
ously used in copying, the Talking with the Pencil 
should begin. 



TALK XIII. 

TALKING WITH THE PENCIL, CONTINUED. 

All education consists of the development of thought 
and expression. The thought must precede the expres- 
sion. Thought, as I have explained, is the relation of 
ideas. The best stimulus the child can have for clear 
thought is the observation of objects in relation. The 
simplest way to bring thought into the mind, in order to 
express it with the pencil, is to perform some simple act. 
Let the teacher take up, for example, a block, and ask, 
"What did I do?" "Tell me what I did, upon your 
slates," and have pupils write an appropriate sentence, 
each writing it in his own way. Let the teacher sit down 
in a chair ; stand up ; walk ; run ; reach ; laugh ; sing ; 
shake hands ; rap on the table ; point to the clock ; and 
perform a thousand simple acts, and have pupils tell what 
she has done, with their pencils. Let a pupil perform 
an act, and have the others describe it with their pencils. 
Let two pupils plan, and do, something for their play- 
mates to describe. In this way all the idioms that a 
child uses, and even new idioms, may be introduced. 
Pupils may be led to use the various modifications of 
subject and predicate in single words (adjectives or 
adverbs), phrases, and clauses. Prepositions may be 
taught in the written language, as they were in the oral, 



TALKING WITH THE PENCIL, CONTINUED. 85 

by placing objects in different positions. Adverbs, 
by modifying actions, as, walking s/ow/y, and swiftly, 
etc. In fact, all the ways I have just given for oral work 
may be used in the written. Pictures may be effectively 
used. Every teacher should have a large collection of 
good pictures. These may be cut out of illustrated 
books and papers, and pasted upon stout cardboard. 
Let each child take a picture, and write upon the slate 
one thing that he sees in the picture. After he has done 
that well, let him write another and another. Great 
care should be taken to train children to write sentences ; 
using the proper capitals and punctuation. This can 
be done only by having them write a great number of 
single sentences. They should not be allowed to write 
connected sentences, until they have formed the hab- 
it of beginning and ending the sentences properly. 
Teachers will often allow children to write a whole 
page without the proper separation of sentences one 
from the other, repeating " and" and other words over 
and over again. This is simply leading them into bad 
habits. A good way to prevent this is to require pupils 
to ask and answer questions, writing both question and 
answer. Pictures may be used in a great many ways. 
Write questions on the board, to aid the pupils— such 
as, " What things do you see in the picture ?" " Where 
are they ?" " What are they doing ?" " What have they 
been doing?" "What do you think they will do?" 
" What are the names of the persons in the picture ?" 
[Note. — Let pupils give names according to their own 
fancy.] These and many other questions may be 
asked to stimulate investigation. When the proper 



86 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

time arrives — that is, when pupils can write single sen- 
tences correctly — have them describe the picture fully ; 
and then have them imagine and write a story about the 
picture. This they will do with great pleasure. From 
the first, children should be trained to tell, in their own 
language, what they have read ; either at the close of 
the lesson, or at the beginning of the succeeding lesson. 
When they begin to talk with the pencil, after each 
lesson in reading, let them go to their seats and write 
one thing they have read. Follow this by two things, 
then three, then four ; and at last have them write all 
they can remember. 

Objects may be used as the best means of training 
children to talk with the pencil. I wish to say a word 
here about object teaching. That object teaching which 
tries to force a child to see all the teacher sees in an ob- 
ject, or has prepared, by copying a schedule of things 
to be seen from a Manual of Object Teaching, and then 
leads the child to use a lot of strange words, like 
"opaque," "transparent," "flexible," etc., at the 
same time he is struggling to observe ; is to my mind 
as completely wrong as the old-fashioned text-book rote 
learning. In the first place, the whole attention should 
be directed to the observation of the object, without 
being encumbered by new words. Secondly, the child 
can see very little in the object at first. The attempt to 
make him see that which the mature mind only has the 
power to observe, is manifestly wrong. The rule to be 
followed is — place the object before the child, let him 
see what he can, and write what he sees. Then by 
questioning and devices lead him to see more. 



TALKING WITH THE PENCIL, CONTINUED. 87 

Follow the child, and not make the child follow you. 
Thus, gradually and naturally, the child's powers of 
observation will develop. In other words, the object 
should ask the questions, and the child should answer 
them. 

Natural objects are the very best means of training 
the observing faculties ; and at the same time the child 
can be led to acquire the elementary facts or a, b, c's of 
Science. Seeds sown on brown paper, or in cotton, 
their germination and growth watched, and every 
change noted by the children, on paper or slate, may be 
used to arouse the greatest curiosity, and at the same 
time to teach language in a very effective way. Plants 
inside of the room, and out-of-doors shrubs, trees, and 
flowers, should be made the subjects of object and 
language lessons. I trust that I shall live to see the 
day, when both Reading and Composition will be 
beautifully taught by the inspiring stimulus of facts, 
gained from natural objects, that will lay a grand 
foundation for a future knowledge of all the Natural 
Sciences. 

All lessons in objects, form, and color, should be made 
language lessons. The highest perfection of composi- 
tion is reached in accurate descriptions of objects. 
Toward this end all teaching of language should 
steadily tend, without the slightest forcing or over- 
driving. 

Every teacher should be a good story-teller. By 
constant practice, she should be able to tell a story 
in a clear, simple, concise manner. Hans Christian 
Andersen's, Grimm's, and Hebel's charming stories 



8S NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

may be told by the teacher, and then written out by 
the pupil. 

In conclusion, there are certain important rules to be 
observed at every step. First, always be sure that the 
thought is in the mind before you ask the pupil to ex- 
press it. Second, never allow any careless work ; never 
permit a pupil to write a word or sentence wrong, as I 
have said, if it be possible to prevent it. It is a good 
plan for the teacher to move around among her pupils 
while they are writing, and closely watch all they are 
doing. Erase every mistake, and have pupils try again. 
Such expressions as, " You do not see well," " I am 
glad you see something in the picture " (or the object), 
" Look again, and look closer," " Be very careful while 
you are writing that word," may be used by the teacher 
with good effect. Third, have pupils read everything 
they write. Pupils may read each other's stories. Use 
ruled brown paper freely in writing. When pupils get 
command of the pen, have them use ink in writing their 
stories. 

If this plan of training pupils to talk with their 
pencils, which I have tried to outline, be closely fol- 
lowed, I am quite sure, from my experience, that every 
child of ordinary ability may be trained to write accu- 
rately and rapidly page after page of good English in 
three years. And, above all, they may be trained to 
talk with their pencils with as much eagerness and 
pleasure as they talk with their tongues. But the best 
result is not found in correct expression, but in the 
power to think. 



TALK XIV. 

COMPOSITION. 

In the previous talk, I tried to show how children may 
be trained in three years to write legibly, correctly, and 
rapidly a page of English ; that good, patient, careful 
teaching and training will lead them to talk with the 
pencil as correctly and fluently as with the tongue. The 
greatest result is that they love to do this work, and that 
they are entirely prepared by a thoroughly formed habit, 
ever after to express whatever thoughts they may have 
in good English. Education consists, primarily, in the 
development of thought and expression. Expression is 
used by the true teacher simply and solely as a means 
of knowing just how and what the pupil thinks, in order 
to lead him to higher struggles and greater victories. 
I am aware that most so-called teaching consists in the 
training of expression without regard to thought — that 
is, the child's imitative powers alone are cultivated, 
while his creative strength is left to pine and wither 
under a mass of meaningless words. If the teaching 
is real teaching — i. e., thought development — all the 
studies that now follow (after the third year), Geog- 
raphy, Arithmetic, and the Sciences, may be made the 
best kinds of language lessons. Every real lesson is 
carefully planned and given to evolve thought. The 



90 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

child's previous training has given him the power to 
give to the teacher all the thought evolved, either orally, 
or in writing. During the lesson the thought is given 
orally ; when it is finished it should invariably be given 
to the teacher in writing. All true up-building of any 
science consists of logical premises, sequences, and con- 
clusions. Each step grows out of the consistent union 
of all previous thought of which each lesson is a con- 
stituent part. It holds true, then, that if the thought 
evolved in the pupil's mind be logical, its expression, 
either orally or in writing will be — that is, real teach- 
ing, assisted by constant written expression, must train 
a child into the highest art of written composition. 

There is little or no necessity of going outside of the 
regular branches for the best kind of language teaching. 
Elementary Geography furnishes an exceedingly fruitful 
source for charming written descriptions of hills, valleys, 
plains, coast lines, bays, gulfs, rivers, springs, in fact 
all the forms of water and land under the pupil's obser- 
vation, which alone can give the power of imagining 
all unseen forms of land and water. When these un- 
seen forms are moulded and described, and the great, 
magnificent unseen world is imaged through and by the 
seen, all these creations of the imagination will make in- 
spiring subjects for composition. 

Take one step farther, and from the earth spring the 
countless forms of vegetation. Trees, plants, and flowers 
may be described by the child, and each description be 
an inspiration to further observation. 

The animals may be described by the quick pens of 
the children. Shelter, clothing, cities, commerce, and 



COMPOSITION. 91 

all the interesting subjects with which Geography fairly 
teems, form an exhaustless source of excellent themes. 
Faith, Hope, and Charity may be left to repose serenely 
in the lists of subjects for compositions, until they have 
time to bud and blossom in the child's heart. 

History, so closely allied and growing out of Geog- 
raphy, if properly taught, may be made a most excel- 
lent means of language teaching. Pictures, illustrating 
the great events in history, may be described. Follow- 
ing this, the teacher should tell short, interesting stories 
in history, which may be given back by the ready 
writers. Then comes a carefully arranged list of topics 
in History. The school library, if teachers and school 
committees have done their duty, is rich with historical 
works, adapted to the capacity of children. The village 
or city library also, is at their command. The eager 
children are led to read up the topic in a large number 
of excellent books. In the hour of recitation, they pour 
out their new-found treasures for their schoolmates to 
hear and discuss, and for the teacher to mould into con- 
sistency and order. Then comes the happy time when 
they can tell the whole story in their own words, on 
clean sheets of white paper. I am describing no Utopia, 
but a reality, that comes to those who have an immense 
faith in the capabilities of human development. Every 
pupil in a grammar school, at the end of an eight years' 
course, may be trained to do this beautiful work. You 
who, instead of feeding the child's wonderful exhaustless 
power of imagining the good, the true, and the beauti- 
ful, driven where the cutting lash of tradition turns 
the grand study of history into a dry, stupid rote- 



92 NOTES OF TALK'S ON TEACHING. 

learning of pages, dates, and meaningless generaliza- 
tions, will remember that the New Education leads you 
to the heights beyond Jordan, within sight of the Prom- 
ised Land. Do not turn back to the rocky, sandy desert 
of Sin. 

Arithmetic, if it be the study of numbers of things, 
instead of figures, has for its purpose the development 
of exact logic. And if the logic is exact, the statements 
and rules and definitions must be. The pupils are led 
to discover every fact, process, and generalization for 
themselves, and then to state wmat they have discov- 
ered in concise language. Thus Arithmetic may be 
made to fill an indispensable place in language training. 

I have spoken of the use of the elements of Natural 
Science as an excellent means of language teaching. 
From what I have already said, you will see that each 
step in the teaching of Science may be materially 
assisted by written descriptions. There are teachers 
who stoutly aver that the child can spend weeks and 
months, and even years, upon the study of columns of 
words in that expressionless volume called the Spelling- 
book. Now, I would like to ask, if the pupil writes, and 
writes correctly, day after day all the words he learns 
in History, Geography, Arithmetic, and the Natural 
Sciences, how many more words does he need to learn ? 
What is the use of the Spelling-book ? 

When should Grammar be taught ? After the facts 
necessary to the metaphysical generalizations, that 
are indispensable for the comprehension of the difficult 
science of language. When the mind is ready to use a 
high form of logical deduction. What is the use of 



COMPOSITION. 93 

Grammar? First, to enable the mind to look more 
closely into the masterpieces of composition, in such a 
way as to comprehend the thought of an author in 
all its fulness and completeness ; second, to express 
thought orally and in writing, in the clearest, most con- 
cise, and beautiful manner. Correct speaking and cor- 
rect writing can only be learned by constantly speaking 
and writing correctly. No incorrect form should ever 
be presented to pupils until they reach the age of care- 
ful reflection. The custom of writing incorrect syntax 
for children to correct, is a vicious one. Many teachers 
who are now breaking away from the cast-iron method 
of teaching, parsing, and analysis, are diluting the old 
forms by an infusion of weaker ones — i. <?., they are 
training children to use words for the sake of using 
them, without regard to the thought that should always 
inspire their use. They lead children to make sentences, 
using " are," "is," " been," etc., just (as I have said) 
for the purpose of using the word. Now, if the child 
is continually writing, from the second year to the 
eighth inclusive, and every sentence is written under 
the stimulus of thought, he will use all the necessary 
words correctly, and repeatedly. There is, therefore, 
little or no need of purely word lessons. But this teach- 
ing of grammar is infinitely better than the old way of 
taking a sentence, that was made to express a beautiful 
thought, or behind which lies a grand picture ; and 
mangling it by hard names, cutting it into minute 
pieces, hanging its mutilated remains on cruel diagrams ; 
while the author's meaning remains as far away from 
the pupil's mind as the bright stars in heaven. There 



94 A T OTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

will come a time, in the course of proper development, 
when teaching technical grammar may be made a most 
excellent and profitable study ; when the rich mines 
of thought and emotion, of which our literature is full, 
may be opened to the growing minds of children. 
Technical grammar, to my mind, as it is usually taught, 
effectually disgusts children, and bars the way to deeper 
insight into the beauty and strength of language. 



TALK XV. 



NUMBER. 



At the outset of this discussion, three questions should 
be very carefully answered : What is number ? What 
can be done with numbers ? What are the uses of 
number ? It is of the utmost importance that we know 
definitely and exactly the nature of the subject we 
teach ; its relations to other subjects ; its place as a 
means of mental development ; and its utility in the 
affairs of life. If the correct definition of the subject be 
not entirely comprehended, all attempts at teaching will 
be vague and unsatisfactory. The usual definitions of 
number are open to criticism ; for instance, " A number 
is a collection of units." A collection of objects of the 
same kind may be designated as a. few, several, some, etc. 
Thus you see the definition fails in definiteness„ The 
best way to define anything is to concentrate the mind 
upon the thing to be defined. I place, for example, 
several blocks before you. You can say, " There are 
some blocks," " There are several blocks," " There are a 
few blocks." " Some," "several," and "few" are ad- 
jectives limiting the substantive, " blocks." If you wish 
to be more definite in regard to a collection of blocks, 
by a closer inspection you are enabled to say, " There 
are five blocks." " Five" is also a limiting adjective. 



96 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

What is the difference between the former limita- 
tions of " few," "some," and " several," and of the 
last, "five"? The difference, you see, is in definite- 
ness of limitation of the collection. " Five" answers 
definitely the question, "How many blocks?" It is 
difficult to formulate a satisfactory definition from 
these facts. The best we can give at present is, that 
number definitely limits objects of the same kind to 
how many. The correlative of this definition is, that 
surfaces, lines, corners, or points definitely limit vol- 
umes or bodies of matter in regard to dimensions. You 
will observe that number definitely limits objects of 
the same kind, in regard to how many. Number lim- 
its nothing vague or intangible. Number is not a 
quality of objects or any part of an object ; it simply 
limits objects of the same kind in one particular 
way. We can make these limitations first, by the senses ; 
by sight, touch, and hearing. But these limitations 
of the senses must have their limitations — that is, the 
visual, tactual, auricular grasp of numbers of things, 
however highly cultivated, must reach a point beyond 
which it cannot go. What this point is, I am not at 
present able to say. Following, and leaving, the point 
where the sense-grasp ceases, must come what may be 
called, the grasp of the imagination. The latter depends 
totally upon the former for its definiteness and distinct- 
ness. This fact is of the greatest importance. The un- 
seen can only be measured by the seen. For instance, 
experience, or, in other words, actual sense products, are 
the only measures of that which cannot come within the 
direct and limiting acts of the senses. We measure the 



NUMBER. 97 

unseen mile by the yard or rod that is definitely fixed 
in the mind by close observation. We measure a hun- 
dred things by a standard that has been fixed in the mind 
in the same way, by the action of the senses. 

I have often heard objections raised to the object 
method of teaching number, because the eye and hand 
can take in so few things at a time. This objection is 
illogical to the last degree ; for it is of the utmost impor- 
tance that our measures of values, that can be obtained 
only through the senses, be as distinct to the mind as the 
actual yard-stick or bushel to the measurer. You can 
easily see how a slight fault in the standard would bring 
about an immense error in great numbers of things. 
Precisely in the same way, if the standards of measure 
are not distinct in the mind, the imagination of num- 
bers of things that lie beyond the sense-grasp, will be 
weak and wrong. Thus you see that the illogical argu- 
ment of the objectors to object teaching is, in reality, 
the very strongest reason that can be given in favor of 
such teaching. 

What can be done with numbers ? I advise you 
always, for such answers, to observe closely numbers 
of things. Here are a number of blocks. What can I 
do with them ? In what relations can you see them ? 
Take this one number ; with your eyes you can per- 
ceive the definite limitation as to how many. What 
can I do with this number ? I can separate it into 
other numbers or parts, each of which you limit defi- 
nitely in your mind by the means of sight. Can I do 
more ? Try it. Here are several numbers. What can 
be done with them ? I unite them into one number. 



98 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

What more can be done with a number ? I separate the 
number into parts, or other numbers ; I unite numbers 
into one whole number. I can do this actually, or I can 
think it done. Numbers can be united ; a number can 
be separated. Every operation in arithmetic, however 
difficult or complex, must consist of one or both of these 
two simple processes — uniting and separating. There 
are two relations of numbers, in these two processes, 
which are severally actual counterparts, or correlatives 
of each other. These relations may be called, first, the 
relation of unequal numbers to each other ; second, the 
relation of equal numbers to each other. I can separate 
this number of blocks into numbers that are not equal, 
each to the other ; I can unite the unequal numbers into 
one number. I can separate this number into equal 
numbers or parts ; I can unite the equal numbers into one 
number. Here we have the so-called fundamental four 
operations of arithmetic. Uniting numbers (or making 
a unit of them) is addition ; uniting equal numbers, a 
simpler process to the eye and to the imagination than 
the union of unequal numbers, is multiplication. The 
reverse of the former is subtraction ; of the latter, 
division. A full comprehension of these simple facts, 
and the highly important truth, that every operation in 
arithmetic consists solely and entirely of the application 
of these simple relations, will make the subject of arith- 
metic a true science, instead of a complex art. 

What is the use of number ? First, and the most im- 
portant point to be understood in the teaching of any 
Subject, is its bearing upon mental development ; 
second, its utility as applied to the affairs of life. The 



NUMBER. 99 

teaching of arithmetic may be divided into two parts : 
first, training the power to calculate with accuracy and 
rapidity ; second, the development of the power to 
reason exactly and logically. When we train a child to 
add, subtract, multiply, and divide with accuracy and 
rapidity, the exactness and celerity necessary to good 
work trains the power of attention. Mathematics is the 
only exact science ; if the premises are correct, the con- 
clusions must be. To form a strong effectual habit of 
seeing and thinking of things just as they are, and in 
their exact relations, is the province of mathematics. 
There are, then, two motives in teaching arithmetic ; 
one of which is to train attention, the other, the higher 
and more important one, is the development of the 
power to reason logically. All arithmetical reasoning 
must be done, by bringing the mind to bear directly 
upon the relations of numbers of things. Language 
is simply the means of bringing the numbers of things 
and their relations into the mind. 

How shall, or rather how must number be taught ? I 
use this word must because, primarily and fundament- 
ally, there is only one way to teach number — that is, by 
direct observation of numbers of objects. We may, it 
is true, teach the language of number, leaving the as- 
sociation of the language with the ideas they should 
recall, to accident, and fondly imagine that we are teach- 
ing number. As well might we try to teach the facts in 
botany without plants, in zoology without animals, 
form without forms, and color without colors, as to 
teach number without numbers of objects. All primary 
ideas of number and their relations, must be obtained 



joo NOTES Of TALKS ON TEACH IXC. 

immediately through the senses, and by their repeated 
limitations as numbers of things, as to how many. 

The first step in teaching number is, to ascertain, by 
careful examination, just how much the child knows of 
number — i.e. y just his acquired power of limiting of 
objects of the same kind, to how many ; just how 
many limitations of this kind he has acquired. His 
knowledge of number, has been acquired through some 
necessity of limiting the number of objects he handles or 
sees. Thus a child in the kindergarten, who is constant- 
ly handling objects — splints, pieces of paper, blocks, 
etc., placing them in different forms, such as triangles, 
squares, oblongs, &c, is gaining unconsciously, in the 
best possible way, knowledge of number. The child's 
real knowledge of number, consists in recognizing 
numbers of things at sight. Ability to count must not 
be confounded with the true knowledge of numbers of 
things. Counting is generally ordinal ; his four or five 
is apt to be nothing but the fourth or fifth. Just what 
he does know, is the first question to be answered by 
the teacher. He may know numbers without knowing 
their names or the words that recall them. It would 
not be fair, then, to gauge his knowledge of number, by 
asking him to bring you three, four, or more things. 
Hold up three objects and say, " Bring me so many," 
is the first and easiest test. If this test is successful, 
hold up a number of objects (not more than four), and 
say, " Bring me — " [naming the number]. Third 
test, hold up a number of objects and ask, " How 
many ?" Fourth, request the child to bring you so 
many, giving the number without showing the object. 



NUMBER. 101 

When you have ascertained just what the child 
knows of number, begin there. From repeated tests, 
given by myself, and by teachers under my supervision, 
the average child of five, or even six years of age, does 
not know three, when he enters the school-room. The 
reason for this, as I have before intimated, is not far to 
seek. It can be found in the fact, that he has not been 
led to limit objects in the definite way required by 
number. The teacher should know exactly the facts 
that the child must acquire in order to know number 
comprehensively. That is, just what separations and 
unions of numbers cover the whole ground. These facts 
can be briefly stated thus : First, the equal numbers in 
a number, the equal numbers that make a number ; 
second, the equal parts of a number ; and third, any two 
unequal numbers in a number, and any two unequal 
numbers that make a number. This applies to numbers 
from one to twenty inclusive. These facts should be 
recognized by the child, without the slightest hesitation, on 
the presentation of objects, and should be recalled in 
the same manner, on hearing, or seeing the language 
that represents them. I wish to emphasize this point, 
that the facts should be known without the slightest 
hesitation. That which is learned should be sunk into 
automatic action. That teaching which leaves the child 
a prey to helpless counting of fingers, when he wishes 
to reach a fact, is very poor indeed. * The struggle of 
education is essentially for freedom — i.e., the mind 
should be freed by proper repetitions and drill, so that 
petty details may be left behind, in order that power 
may be concentrated upon the higher step. For in- 



102 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

stance, in solving a problem, the whole power of the 
mind should be brought to bear upon the exact rela- 
tions of the numbers of things, free entirely from calcu- 
lation ; because the calculation needed has been so 
thoroughly mastered, that it becomes secondary and en- 
tirely subordinate, requiring simply automatic action. 
Therefore you will see of what exceeding importance it 
is, that the facts, step by step, should be thoroughly 
acquired once, and forever. 



TALK XVI. 

NUMBER, CONTINUED. 

The almost hopeless confusion in their knowledge of 
arithmetic, that we find in older pupils, is owing in greater 
part to the attempt to teach too much during the first 
year. I have seen, many times, fifty, or even one hun- 
dred, laid down in the course of study to be taught. I 
have tried during the last eleven years, to teach number 
to little folks ; and I have never yet succeeded in teach- 
ing, nor have I ever seen ten, really taught during the first 
year. I am well aware that many good teachers argue, 
that by constant repetition of the language, without re- 
gard to what the language expresses., fifty, or even one 
hundred may be taught — i.e., the child, by unceasing 
drill may repeat a great quantity of gibberish, that to the 
casual observer may seem to be a valuable result. Ask 
these children to verify one of their voluble sentences, by 
showing the real relations of numbers of things, that the 
sentence was made to represent, and you see, at once, 
that they have spent much valuable time in learning an 
unknown language. The same teachers argue that the 
child cannot reason, and therefore he must be taught 
the language, before the things. All this unreason, 
arises from the attempt, that tradition forces upon us, 
to teach far more than the child can learn. There is no 



104 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

time in the child's life when he cannot see, judge, gen- 
eralize, and imagine, providing the work is adapted to 
his mental capacity. It is this lack of adaptation, which 
leads to this erratic theory, and ruinous practice. Give 
the child time to grow, and wait patiently until the 
germs of power burst out of their fruitful soil of un- 
consciousness. 

Teach each number as a whole, as you teach every- 
thing within the sense-grasp. When the idea of a num- 
ber is in the mind as a whole, the tendency of the 
mental power awakened, by the whole, is to go to the 
parts. We can only analyze that which is in the mind. 
Forced analysis, before the object is clear in the mind, 
generates weakness. Let the child discover everything 
he can in a number, and discover it for himself, and 
by himself. If, for instance, he is learning 4 ; he has al- 
ready learned 1, 2, and 3 ; and by skilful leading he can 
discover the i's, the 2's, the 3 and 1, and 1 and 3, he 
finds in 4. 

There are teachers who argue, that an attempt to teach 
the four operations at the same time, confuses the child. 
It would, no doubt, if the language alone were learned, 
without regard to the thought which that language ex- 
presses. But let us see. I hold up four blocks, sepa- 
rated into 2's. 

What do you see ? You say, " Two and two are four," 
or in other language, " Two twos are four," " There 
are two twos in four," " Four less two is two." Which 
fact do you see first ? I have never had a class who 
agreed upon this. I hardly know myself. It is logical 
to suppose, that we must see the separation, before we 



NUMBER, CONTINUED. 105 

can see the combination. No ; we must see the whole 
before the part. It is the old question of trying to sep- 
arate synthesis from analysis. I am inclined to be- 
lieve that it is impossible for us to synthesize without 
analyzing, or vice versa. The synthesis of units should 
sink, as quickly as possible, into unconscious acts and 
not be kept alive by counting. But I think the proof is 
positive, that if we see two twos in four, we also see [at 
the same time] that two twos are four. That three and 
two are five, we see at the same time that we do, that five 
less two is three, and five less three is two. Now, instead 
of confusing the mind, correlative relations mutually as- 
sist each other in comprehending each relation. To spend 
a long time in adding numbers, without noticing con- 
sciously the separations ; follow that by a long term of 
subtracting ; after which teach multiplying and divid- 
ing ; produces, I think, the inextricable confusion re- 
garding number, that I have never failed to find in 
grammar grade classes. The same theory carried out 
in botany, would take one part of the plant — the leaves, 
for instance — and teach that, without regard to the 
whole plant ; and then returning, teach the bark, then 
the stem, and so on. This manner of teaching belongs, 
not to a primary, but to a secondary stage of work. 
One important point I wish to make very clear to you, 
because in most English arithmetics, the point has been 
sadly misunderstood. I have said that the facts to be 
learned, are ; the equal numbers in a number, and the 
equal parts of a number. I hold up four blocks ; you 
readily see that there are two twos in four ; that one half 
of four is two. Compare the two twos (2 2's = 4) in four, 



106 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

with, one half of four is two ones (2 i's — 2). Now, in 
most of the arithmetics published in this country 
and Great Britain, both of these radically different re- 
lations, are represented by one written sentence, viz.; 
4-^-2. Arithmetic is an exact science and it is ab- 
solutely indispensable that it have an exact language. 
I cannot conceive why these two relations have been 
almost totally unrecognized by book-makers. The 
only way I can account for it is, that the language 
of arithmetic seems to have arisen from the relations 
of the signs, and not the numbers of things. Find- 
ing the equal parts of a whole number, which I would 
like to call partition, in contradistinction to the equal 
parts of a unit (fractions), is not, perhaps, one of 
the simplest processes. But it may successfully begin 
when the child is learning four, and the two opera- 
tions of measuring by equal numbers, (division) and 
finding the equal parts of a number, should be kept 
entirely distinct from each other, in the child's mind, as 
they really are, or will be, unless his mind is confused 
by an ambiguous sentence. Discriminate very sharply 
between learning number, and learning the language of 
number. The former must precede the latter. If I am 
any judge of results, nine tenths of the teaching of 
arithmetic consists in teaching figures alone, with little 
or no regard to numbers. This you may easily test by 
asking pupils to verify with objects a few sentences like 
these ; 

1 of 1 2- _i_ JL etc 

2 l 4' 6 • 2' eiC 

The language of arithmetic is made up of idioms, that 
have little or no analogy with the rest of the language. 



NUMBER, CONTINUED. 107 

For instance, the word from, in Subtraction, is used in 
arithmetic only in the sense of out of. Times, in multipli- 
cation is a misleading word. Bear in mind, then, that in 
the first steps of teaching number, the ideas of number 
and their relations are the things to be taught. Allow the 
child to use his own idioms to express what he sees, 
until the ideas become fixed in the mind. Then gradu- 
ally introduce, by using them yourself (do not require 
the pupils to use them at first), the conventional idioms 
peculiar to arithmetic. Thus, these forms of speech 
become gradually associated with the thought. There 
is no danger of using the new terms, when they recall 
exactly what they mean. 

There is another important point in the language 
of arithmetic. When the child enters school, he has 
clear ideas of the spoken words, such as " hat,'* 
" mat," " cat," " box," etc., with which written words 
are to be associated. He has been gathering these 
ideas through five or six years of constant mental 
exercise, but, as I have shown, he has very few, if any, 
clear ideas of number. Ideas grow very slowly. It takes 
a long time, with many acts of perception, to fix one 
idea clearly in the mind. It is of immense importance 
that these ideas come into the mind so distinctly, that 
they can be used in thinking. The oral language must 
be used to assist in gaining the ideas, and to express 
them. But if we endeavor to teach both forms of lan- 
guage, the written and the oral, at the same time the all- 
important work of idea growth is going on, do we not 
iry to do too much ? Will not the written figures be 
taken, as they constantly are, for that which they should 



108 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

represent ? I would defer the teaching of written figures, 
for this and other reasons, until at least ten, is thor- 
oughly taught. Then, figures may be taught, as words 
and sentences in reading are, by associating them di- 
rectly with that which they represent. 

I will now try to give some indications of the step-by- 
step plan, by which numbers may be taught. First, teach 
the number as a whole ; use a great variety of objects 
appealing to sight, touch, and hearing ; second, lead 
the child to discover every fact for himself, giving each 
one a number of objects ; third, after the facts have been 
repeatedly discovered by the child, fix them in the 
mind by constant drill. Let the child take the num- 
ber of objects, and show you rapidly, what he can see 
in it. Show the objects yourself, and have the pupils 
tell what they see. Then, without objects, question 
pupils sharply upon the facts, and have them answer 
without hesitation. Next, apply the numbers learned, 
in all sorts of practical ways, by means of little prob- 
lems. Have pupils make problems for themselves. In 
the teaching of number, use all the common weights, 
measures, money, that come within the scope of the 
number taught. Teach one number at a time, and have 
the pupils learn the facts in that number, before another 
is taught. Review continually. Judge of your prog- 
ress by the increasing power of attention on the part 
of your pupils. 

When should we stop using objects ? I have but 
one answer to this question. Cease using any ob- 
ject, when it can be thought of, and used without 
the presence of the object. This is a general rule, and 



NUMBER, CONTINUED. 109 

applies to all object teaching. When children can think 
of the things, or qualities required for the desired men- 
tal action, without the presence of objects, their after- 
use cultivates weakness rather than strength. That is, 
when the mind has abstracted the required ideas of 
number, and their relations, from numbers of objects, 
then, the real abstract number may be used. The 
abstract number that cannot be defined, or thought of, 
is a snare and a delusion, and has caused more vague, 
meaningless, stupid work in arithmetic, than the teach- 
ing of the names of the letters has in reading. We say, 
for example, that the multiplier is abstract : 2 times 3 
means two threes. Two is a limiting adjective, and 
limits threes. It has a definite meaning, and to say 
that it is abstract, in the sense given by most arithmetics 
to that miserable word, is nonsense. 

Let me say, in conclusion to this talk, that if you have 
been, like myself, trained in figure work, instead of the 
study of number, I should advise you to lay aside, for a 
time, all you ever thought you knew about arithmetic, 
and begin its careful, thoughtful study over again, 
[using numbers of objects all the time], with a little 
child to lead you. 



TALK XVII. 

ARITHMETIC. 

When ten has been thoroughly taught, begin the 
teaching of the written language of number. The proc- 
ess of teaching figures, is precisely the same as in teach- 
ing written words. First, show a number of objects, 
and then write (on the blackboard) the sign ; second, 
write the sign, and ask pupils to show that number of 
objects ; third, show a number of objects, and have 
pupils write the sign ; fourth, send the class to the 
board, then show numbers of objects one after the 
other, and have pupils write the sign ; fifth, show in, 
ii, thus ; then change to iiiii, and say, " Write that." 
They write, " 3 and 2 are 5;" sixth, teacher erases and, 
and writes -f, are and writes =. " Now read it the same 
way as before." Teach the signs, =, +, — , X, -r-, 
very carefully, one at a time, and then review, by writing 
them together. Show objects (as in oral teaching), and 
have pupils write the answers. Introduce exercises 
like the following : 



I 
8-^2 = 4 
4 2' 8 = 8 


2 
8^2 = 

4 2'* = 


3 

8- =4 

4 * = S 


4 
~2 =4 

2 <s =8 


5+4=9 
8-5 = 3 
4X2=8 


5 +4 = 

3-5 = 
4X2 = 


5 + =9 
8- -3 
4X =8 


+ 4=9 
-5 =3 
X2 =8 



ARITHMETIC. in 

Then have pupils erase the answers, (see 2) and write 
the answers rapidly. Have them erase answers again, 
and read the columns. Have them erase second line, 
(see 3) then fill up the columns. Have them erase again, 
and read. Then let them erase the first line, (see 4) and 
fill in the answers. Use in these exercises,"all the forms 
of stating processes, to be found in arithmetical calcula- 
tion ; the pupils learning them, by seeing the relations 
which they express. In division, for example, 8 -=- 4 = 2, 
4)8(2, 4X8 ; in multiplication, 2X3 = 6, 3. When these 

h 1 

6 
forms are firmly fixed in the mind, give the same 
exercises, without using objects. From 10 proceed, 
number by number, to the development of 20, using 
both oral and written work. For reviews, give an ex- 
ercise like this (orally), having pupils write out answers 
upon slates or board, in columns, without hesitation : 7 + 5 ; 
5-J-3 ; 4's in 12 ; 10 — 7 ; ^of 9 ; 6X2. Let pupils change 
slates, and correct ; the teacher reading the answers. 
Train pupils to make good figures, and to arrange their 
work neatly upon slates, blackboard, or paper. Never 
allow any careless work. 

These exercises, however, form only a part of the 
work which should be done. The oral and written 
work should go hand in hand. Calculation should be 
followed by applied numbers ; using, as in oral work, 
weights, measures, and money. Have pupils buy and 
sell, and keep an account of their trades, on slate and 
paper. Give them a great many little problems, that 
will test their thinking powers. Have them write their 



112 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

own problems, (language lessons). Write on the board 
7+4 5 3X5; i of 12 ; 16-^-4 ; and have them write 
problems on their slates, using these numbers and 
their relations. Write examples for them on the 
board. Have them read them (reading lessons). A 
Primary Arithmetic may be introduced, [like the 
" Franklin"] as a reading book, at this stage. The 
squares of 2, 3, 4, and 5, may be taught, by draw- 
ing the squares on the board. Have children make 
the tables — multiplication and division ; products not 
exceeding the number taught. I believe, when 20 
is thoroughly taught, and all the facts are known with- 
out the slightest hesitation, and when the child has 
formed the habit of using figures, simply to represent 
numbers of things, in such a way, that the figures, in 
any and all of their relations, will readily recall the 
numbers in their relations ; that more than half of the 
science of arithmetic, is within the grasp of the pupils. 
This work should occupy the time, at least, of the first 
two years. It may be done, I think, in one year, if the 
pupils have had thorough Kindergarten training. 

I have not time to speak of the steps from 20 to 100. 
For this work, I will refer you to the Arithmetical 
Charts, soon to be published by Cowperthwait & Co. 
Three years at least, should be allowed for the thorough 
teaching of 100. 

I am often asked the question, " When should the 
use of objects cease, in the development of number ; that 
is, in teaching a new number ?' ' It is clear to my mind, 
that when pupils can analyze a number, [i.e., find the 
equal numbers in a number, the equal parts of a 



ARITHMETIC. 113 

number, any two unequal numbers into which a num- 
ber can be separated, or that make a number,] without 
the presence of the objects, the time has come when 
they should not be used. Whether this be at 10, or 
20, I know not I shall have to teach number, to 
little children a few years longer, before I shall be able 
to find this important fact. This rule, however, ap- 
plies to all teaching. Set the child free as soon as pos- 
sible ; train him to help himself ; to use that which is 
in his mind with the slightest external stimulus ; but 
above all things, be sure that he has the right mental 
objects to use. These must come in through the senses. 

I have tried to give you an outline, of how children 
may be thoroughly grounded in primary arithmetic. If 
you fully comprehend, and carry out this plan, very 
little need be said about higher or Written Arithmetic, 
as it is usually called. For there is absolutely nothing 
new to be learned in all arithmetical teaching, except 
the processes which large numbers involve, such as is 
found in the additions, multiplications, subtractions, and 
divisions, which cannot be performed without the use of 
slate and pencil. All these processes should be dis- 
covered by pupils. 

The tendency of modern teaching has been, to make 
very simple things complex and difficult. The applica- 
tion of the science of teaching, will bring us back to the 
grand simplicity, characteristic of true art. The com- 
plexity, of which I speak, can arise in no other way, than 
from a superficial understanding of arithmetic. That 
is, it consists in taking the language for the thing, and 
making rules, and definitions, and terms, which appear 



114 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

entirely new to both teacher and pupil, when they are 
simply a well-known operation under a new name. I 
have shown that all that can be done with number, con- 
sists totally, of separating and uniting numbers. That 
every subject in arithmetic, whether it be fractions, 
decimals, percentage, interest, or cube-root — whether 
the numbers be large or small, is only a simple continu- 
ance of what the child has already learned ; a new 
application of the same thing. Let the teacher follow 
the great pedagogical rule of Pestalozzi. Teach the 
idea before the word, the thought before the expression, 
and all will go well. When a new subject is begun, 
fractions, for example, let the pupils discover what 
fractions are, by means of objects ; show them the frac- 
tions ; have them write the signs upon the blackboard. 
Follow the usual course in teaching fractions, and you 
will readily see that pupils can be led to discover for them- 
selves, a mixed number, by showing them by objects a 
whole number and a fraction ; an improper fraction, by 
separating a whole number into equal parts. That the 
parts must be equal, in order to add or subtract ; and 
when they are equal, they are added and subtracted pre- 
cisely like whole numbers ; and so on, step by step, they 
may be led to see the relation of the different equal parts 
of units. That is, the thoughts can be evolved, by means 
of objects, before the sentence is written. If you happen 
to have a class that have been through the book, and know 
all about fractions, write a simple fraction upon the 
board, and ask them to verify it with objects, i.e. — ask 
them to show you just what the word or sentence 
means. In all my experience, I have never failed to 



ARITHMETIC. 115 

bring about a commendable degree of humility, which 
is very useful when turning the minds of the pupils 
afresh, upon an old and almost worn-out subject, that 
students often imagine, that they have thoroughly 
mastered. 

I cannot urge you too strongly, as teachers, to go 
back to the study of the real meaning, of all you think 
you know about arithmetic. My advice comes from my 
own experience in trying to teach this subject. Finding 
that I knew figures well, and not numbers of things, I 
have been obliged to go back to the objects, in order to 
find just what the figures in their relations mean. My 
second reason for this advice is, that I find pupils in 
advanced grades, unable to reason in arithmetic. Rea- 
soning, let me repeat, must be upon things, and not 
words. 

The question has been often asked me, " How much 
analysis would you have ?" By analysis, many teachers 
mean, the repetition of a set formula that has been learn- 
ed "by heart." That is, a child learns a pattern, by 
which all examples of the same kind may be done, with 
the slightest possible mental action on the part of the 
learner. This is not analysis, though it is often called 
by that name. It is pattern-learning, and is simply, 
imitation carried over into the sacred region of thought 
development ; and it effectually prevents the growing of 
any original or creative power. Analysis, is the dis- 
covery by the thinking powers, of the parts of a whole, 
which must be, of course, clearly in the mind, before its 
parts can be mentally seen. Another difficulty in this 
so-called elaborate analysis is, that it consumes much 



Il6 NOTES OF TALKS OX TEACHING. 

valuable time. For instance: "If one apple costs 
three cents, what will four apples cost ?" (Child.) " If 
one apple costs three cents, four apples, will cost four 
times as many cents as one apple will cost. Therefore, 
four apples will cost four times three cents. Four 
times three cents, are twelve cents. Therefore; if one 
apple costs three cents, four apples will cost twelve 
cents." 1 think I have not put in all the words, that 
can be put into this complex, and useless explanation ; 
still I have tried to illustrate what I have very often 
heard. The example given, is the application of a gener- 
al fact, which the child is learning. If the previous 
work has been correct, all the child needs to say, is, 
" Twelve cents ;" and go on performing a dozen exam- 
ples, instead of agonizing over the stiff formula of one. 
Let me not be misunderstood. The pupil's attention 
should continually be turned back, upon that which has 
come into their minds as wholes. We learn the science 
of arithmetic, not for the purpose of knowing arith- 
metic, but that the study of the subject may increase 
mental power. The trouble is, that we fix our minds on 
the quantity to be learned, and not on the value the 
things learned, has in mental growth. 

Now, there is not one thing in the science of numbers, 
no definition, rule, or process, that cannot be dis- 
covered by the child, under the proper leading of a skil- 
ful teacher, who knows what she is teaching. The 
pupils can discover in this way, every thought, the lan- 
guage, of course, must be given them. Definitions, 
rules, processes, and problems, may be an excellent 
means of mental growth, if each and all are discovered 



ARITHMETIC. 117 

by the pupils for themselves, and by themselves. They 
are generally, as learned and applied in the pattern 
fashion, a great means of concealing thought, and in- 
creasing stupidity. The arithmetic of the future, will 
contain, not one rule, definition, or explanation of a 
process. " Education is the generation of power," 
11 Never do anything for a pupil, that he can be led to 
do for himself." How often these old truths have been 
repeated, and still, one of the great evils, if not the 
greatest, is, that we do too much for the pupils. In- 
stead of leaving them to help, and control themselves, 
instead of cultivating their powers of attention and 
concentration, we try to make them the passive, innocent 
recipients of stores of knowledge, without the move- 
ment, on their part, of a mental muscle. Explanation 
is one of the very best means of preventing mental 
action. 

Train a boy to be an athlete ; lift him over every 
bar, carry him up the ladders, defend him with your 
fists, and then send him out into the world to fight. his 
own battles ! This is exactly what we do, when we make 
everything plain by exp/ai'/iation . I have heard the ob- 
jection made by teachers, when I have broached this 
cardinal doctrine of the New Education, that it takes 
too much time, to lead a child to discover everything for 
himself. Education is the generation of power ; and the 
generation of power, in the right way, is the very 
highest economy of which man can conceive. We learn 
to do by doing, to hear by hearing, and to think by 
thinking. We see with all we have seen, we do with 
all we have done, and we think with all we have 



Ii8 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

thought. The greatest delight of all teaching is, to 
place the difficulty squarely before the pupils, [generally 
by means of objects, ]■ and then let them work it out for 
themselves. If they go wrong, do not tell them they 
are wrong, but ask the question that will set them right. 
Time is nothing, when power is growing ! Look on 
this picture, and then on that. A class listening to the 
verbose explanation of an enthusiastic pourer-out of 
knowledge, watch their faces as they are repeating a 
rote-learned definition, rule, or formula, or are waiting 
for their mothers — I beg your pardon — their teachers, 
to put the food into their open mouths. Or, if you 
please, behold this class ; led by a teacher inspired by 
the thorough knowledge of the subject, who has the 
thought distinctly in her own mind, who is trying 
dextrously to lead her class to know what she knows, 
and is very glad to have them discover something that 
she doesn't know. One class, solemnly marches to 
their goal of quantity, under the banner of rewards and 
punishments, per cents, merits, checks, or the rod. The 
other, all aglow with eagerness and zeal, faces flushed 
in their earnest desire to discover the truth, fearful that 
some one will tell them, what they wish to find out for 
themselves, such children are gathering strength at 
every step, and learning to do the work the world is 
most in need of. 

My dear teachers, fill yourselves full of the subject 
you would teach, know its nature, its length, breadth, 
and depth, and then with the knowledge of the learning 
child, lead him to discover, step by step, what you have 
discovered. I promise you, that in such work you will 



ARITHMETIC. 119 

find for yourselves, a mental growth on your own part, 
that can scarcely be found anywhere else, and an un- 
equalled joy, in leading little ones to fulfil the grand 
destiny for which God intended them. 



TALK XVIII. 



GEOGRAPHY. 



A description of the surface of the earth and its in- 
habitants is, perhaps, as comprehensive a definition of 
geography as can be found. A description of the sur- 
face of the earth, consists of a knowledge of the struct- 
ure of the outside of this ball on which we live ; this 
structure consisting of slopes, relatively gradual and 
abrupt, that vary its outline • the surface being not 
that of a perfectly smooth sphere. This description of 
the surface is limited, in geography, to the constructed 
merely, and not the construction. The construction 
applying to the material, is the realm of geology. 
We have, in geography, two parts. The first, per- 
tains to the superficial structure ; the second, to the 
people who live, and have lived upon the structure. 
We have, then, the stage and the actors. The first, is 
real, or structural geography, the second, history. For 
history has to do with all that men have done in the 
past, and all they are doing at present. 

The first work in geography, is to build into the 
mind, by means of the imagination, the stage, that may 
afterward be filled with moving and acting human 
beings. We can teach geography by means of maps, so 
that the mind will rarely go beyond the map, i.e., the 



GEOGRAPHY. 121 

world and all it contains, is limited to the colored sur- 
face of a piece of paper. Now the map, like a word, 
should be the means of recalling a reality. That teach- 
ing of geography, which does not take the student be- 
yond the representation of that which is represented, is 
manifestly wrong. The description, as I have said, of 
the surface of the earth, must be of mental pictures of 
the forms raised above a perfectly level surface. If the 
surface of the continent were like that of the ocean, [of 
water], a particular description of surface would be im- 
possible. Varying outlines, then, make it possible for 
us to describe the surface of the earth. A description 
of the various and varying forms, that rise above the 
level of the ocean, is, per se, a description of the earth's 
surface. This description has been almost entirely over- 
looked, in the study of geography. 

The structure of the earth's surface should be studied, 
just as any other structure or form is studied. Were 
I to ask you to describe a house that you have seen, you 
would immediately concentrate your mind upon a men- 
tal picture of that house. You would tell me of its 
height, its roof, its general form, of its doors and win- 
dows, and so on. Just in this way, a continental struct- 
ure may, and should be, described. These varying 
forms of vertical structure, in their relations, give the 
character to a continent or any of its parts. Let us look 
at this a moment, in relation to memory. All that we 
remember must be located in space, real or imaginary. 
The more distinct the locality is, in the mind, the more 
tenaciously and clearly the mind holds any fact in re- 
lation to the locality. The more character there is, the 



122 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

more pronounced and varying the slopes, into hills, val- 
leys, coast-lines, and rivers, the easier it is, to fill such 
localities with facts, and retain them. Our knowledge 
of locality, upon smooth surfaces, like the ocean, is very 
vague, hanging as it does upon imaginary lines, drawn 
from the sun, moon, and stars. I can make my mean- 
ing plain, by referring to the method of the modern 
historian, or novelist. The first thing to be done, on the 
part of either, when a book is to be written, is to care- 
fully prepare the terrain upon which their figures have 
moved, or are to move. Curtius, the famous historian 
of Greece, has given us in the first pages of his history, 
a clear picture of that wonderful peninsula. When 
one can travel, in imagination, all over that country, 
can see Thermopylae, and Marathon, can climb the 
Acropolis, or wander over the Isthmus of Corinth, can 
view Sparta in all its surroundings, he is, in a measure, 
ready to follow the fascinating movements of the char- 
acters, either real or imaginary, from Hercules to Boz- 
zaris. The novelist, with a freer pen, and more fanci- 
ful range of thought, is wont to describe minutely the 
landscape, upon which he designs to place his charac- 
ters. Test yourselves in this respect, and you will see 
better what I mean. Recall the farm upon which you 
were born [if you were so fortunate], or any other 
scene that is fixed in your mind by long familiarity. 
How from each tree, running stream, valley, or hill, 
start thousands of recollections, bound to them by the 
great law of association. Were I to tell you that such 
and such changes had been made, a house built here, a 
road there, how quickly would your imagination make 



GEOGRAPHY. 123 

a picture of the changes, and these pictures would there- 
after be held firmly in your memory. Now, what the 
novelists and historians do, in order to make us remem- 
ber their stories and histories, should be done with 
the structure of the whole earth, and for the same pur- 
pose. So that cities, political divisions, the movements 
of men, and all that is continually moving and changing, 
may be retained and held, in the forms and spaces that 
do not change. My first argument, then, for the teach- 
ing of structural geography, is, that it is an essential 
and fixed basis for the memory of eternally changing 
facts. 

The character of the vertical forms of continents de- 
termines their horizontal shape or outline. This is 
plainly seen in the relations of highlands to the sea- 
coast. The vertical forms, also determine the drainage 
of a continent. The immense uplifted masses may be 
called the bones, or framework, the drainage, the life- 
blood of continental forms. The soft earth or soil, 
worn away from rocks, that gives us fertile or arable 
land, is deposited by the drainage of varying slopes. 
Thus, you see, with the exception of the important ele- 
ment of climate, the structure limits the occupation, 
resources of food, shelter, clothing, and health of man. 
The character of mankind depends, to an immense de- 
gree, upon the character and position of these structural 
forms. Compare North America with Africa. The 
one, with great mountain masses, sloping gradually 
down to lower levels, and then to the sea ; with its great 
navigable rivers, and accessible coast ; the other, with 
mountain masses, to be sure, but with no extensive 



124 NOTES OF TALK'S ON TEACHING. 

gradual slopes, so that its rivers to gain their outlets 
must break through plateaus, thus obstructing naviga- 
tion ; and we have a picture of two widely different 
continental forms. They are the extremes. One, wilh the 
conditions for steadily moving arterial blood, like the 
horse ; the other, for the stagnation and slowness of the 
tortoise. The greatness of nations, may be traced direct- 
ly to the structural forms upon which they lived and 
thrived. Egypt, with its narrow strip of very fertile 
land, fed by the Nile, and bounded by vast deserts, to 
keep off invaders. Palestine is a natural fortress, with 
its great wall on the Jordan side, its rocky desert on the 
south, but with one weak point, the fatal plain of 
Esdraelon. Had that great rift in the earth's crust, 
extending from the sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, never 
been made, the history of that wonderful and powerful 
nation, that gave us the foundation for our religion, 
never would have been. The Grecian Peninsula, had 
all the conditions for the development of its wonderful 
history. 

The study of the structure of the earth's surface, forms 
the natural basis of the study of all other Physical Sci- 
ences. A knowledge of the surface, is the elementary 
study of the crust of the earth, and leads directly to Geol- 
ogy, and that to Mineralogy. Drainage, determines the 
soil, and upon soil and climate depends vegetation ; thus 
leading directly to Botany. Upon the vegetation depends 
animal life, the study of which gives us the science of 
Zoology. The movements and phenomena pertaining 
to structure, give us both Physics and Physical Geog- 
raphy ; the measurement of form and movement of the 



GEOGRAPHY. 125 

earth, Mathematical Geography ; its parts and composi- 
tion, Chemistry. All these sciences are the direct out- 
growth of structural geography. Structural geog- 
raphy, then, may be called the elementary science, 
upon which all other sciences are founded. This branch 
has hitherto been almost entirely overlooked or neg- 
lected. Indeed, I am obliged to invent a new name for 
this new science — Structural Geography. 

Humboldt, by his careful observations and generali- 
zations, made it possible for Carl Ritter to discover a 
science of geography. The study of geography, previous 
to Ritter's time, consisted of the learning of a conglom- 
erated mass of isolated and disconnected facts, that must 
be held in the mind by the sheer force of verbal 
memory. The progress of the new science has been, 
and is, exceedingly slow. Guyot, the pupil and disci- 
ple of Ritter, made for us his unequalled Common 
School Geography. But the book has been a failure, 
and is now out of print, because teachers who had been 
taught in the old way could not comprehend its great 
beauty. 



TALK XIX. 

GEOGRAPHY, CONTINUED. 

In my last talk, I tried to show that structural geog- 
raphy is the true basis of geographical and historical 
knowledge. I shall endeavor to show, in this talk, how 
it should be taught. The purpose is, to fix in the mind, 
clear, comprehensive pictures of the forms of continents. 
These forms are made up of slopes. The slopes range 
from the gradual [level plains], to the most abrupt, 
[mountains]. These forms, of course, cannot be seen, 
and the question is, How can they be brought into, or 
built in the mind ? All we know of the unseen must be 
known by the mental power we call imagination. The 
law by which the imagination acts is very plain. There 
is no disagreement among psychologists concerning it. 
Imagination, is that power of the mind which combines 
and arranges, with more or less symmetry and propor- 
tion, that which primarily comes into the mind through 
the senses. Every thing imagined, is made up of parts 
already in the mind, when the particular act of the imag- 
ination takes place. All our power of imagining, is abso- 
lutely limited to sense products, already the property of 
the mind that imagines. If you have never thought of 
this, a very little reflection will convince you of its truth. 
Try to imagine anything, and then, by analysis, notice 



GEOGRAPHY, CONTINUED. 127 

if any of the parts are not things you have already 
known. The unseen is made, or imagined, entirely out 
of the seen. The question, then, in teaching structural 
geography, is, How can the proper sense products, nec- 
essary to the imaging of the forms of continents, be 
brought into the mind ? The answer is near at hand. 
In order to imagine the unseen, that which can be seen 
must be brought clearly into the mind. Elementary 
geography consists of the close and careful observation 
of the forms of the earth's surface around us. There is 
hardly a town or district in the Atlantic States, where 
each and all of these forms may not be observed. 

Higher than mere acquisition of knowledge, geog- 
raphy is the very best means for developing the 
powers of imagination. Next to the direct action of 
the senses, imagination is the most important, in its 
length, breadth, and depth, of all other mental powers. 
Distinct and true creatures of the imagination, are an 
indispensable basis for reason, and for ethical and 
spiritual culture. No subject is more neglected in our 
schools. The little child soon creates a new world out 
of the scant material of his limited sense products. In 
this world of fancy, he lives and revels. The child's life 
would be a sad one, were it not for his own bright, self- 
created world. The little girl sees a beautiful doll in a 
stick and a rag. Out of a few broken pieces of crock- 
ery and a shingle or two, she creates an elegant pantry. 
A cane, to the little boy, is a splendid charger. Fairy 
stories delight all children, and often contain more 
truth than maxims or precepts. Our Common School 
education has a tendency to crush out all imagination, 



128 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

or force it into wrong and vicious channels. This 
steady and strong tendency of the mind, may be de- 
veloped into an immense power, and geography fur- 
nishes, as I have said, one of the very best means for its 
development. 

The first steps in geography, should give the child 
the means to imagine that which he cannot see. Begin 
with the forms around you ; the close and careful 
study of the chains or ranges of hills, valleys, plains, 
coast-lines, springs, brooks, rivers, ponds, lakes, islands, 
and peninsulas. Study them as you do objects in 
Botany or Zoology. Take the children out into the 
fields and valleys ; return to the school-room ; let them 
describe orally what they have seen ; then mould and 
draw it ; and, finally, have them describe the objects 
they have seen by writing. Teach them distance by 
actual measurement ; boundaries by fences, and other 
limitations ; drainage by gutters, and the flow of water 
after a rain. Let them find springs, and discover how 
the water comes out of the ground. Have them bring 
in different kinds of earth — gravel, sand, clay, and 
loam. I have not time to give you any regular order of 
subjects — if there be one. Begin with one object, study 
it carefully, then take another, and combine the two, 
and so on. I wish to call your attention, especially, 
to the three great means of thought expression. First, 
the concrete expression ; second, drawing ; third, lan- 
guage. The first may be done by mouldings and ob- 
tained from an iron foundry. Have pupils tell you 
what they have seen, by moulding the form. Second, 
have them draw everything they see, in relief, and hori- 



GEOGRAPHY, CONTINUED. 129 

zontally. Third, describe what they have seen, orally, 
and then in writing. Use these means continually in 
teaching geography. 

The observation of objects should begin, of course, 
as soon as the child enters school. The objects around 
the school-house should be observed : yards, fences, 
gardens, gutters, roads, fields, pastures, hills, valleys. 
Out of these objects, many very interesting and profit- 
able object and language lessons may be made. But 
the teaching of elementary geography proper should 
not begin much before the fifth year of the child's 
school life. The work of which I have just spoken, the 
study of geographical forms that may be observed, 
should be begun the latter part of the fourth year, or 
the first of the fifth. One year, at least, should be 
spent in this study. Parallel with it, books, like, Each 
and All, Seven Little Sisters, Guyot's Introduction, 
may be read with great profit. They seem to excite 
curiosity and inspire the imagination. The power of 
imagination should be developed at every step. Thus, 
after a lesson upon the hill, tell the children about the 
great mountains in the world. When they have seen 
one river, tell them about others that they can't see. 
When they have examined, moulded, drawn, and 
written a description of one peninsula, draw other 
peninsulas, like Spain, Italy, Greece, Florida, Norway 
and Sweden, for them. When they have studied an 
island, tell them about the great islands [the continents]. 

Constantly excite their curiosity to solve problems 
like these— -Where does the water go, when it falls on 
the ground ? How far down does it go ? What does it 



130 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

do in the earth ? When does it come out of the 
ground ? Where is the more water, in rivers and lakes, 
or in the ground ? Why does not a river run in a 
straight line? What turns it? Why is it narrow at 
some places and wide at others ? Take the water out 
of a lake, and what would you have left ? What, then, 
is a lake ? Where does a river get its water ? How 
much land does a river drain ? What is the difference 
between a river and a canal ? What if the earth was all 
level, like the floor ? What are the uses of a river ? a 
hill ? a plain ? a valley ? When does the water come 
into the land on the coast ? What makes a pebble ? 
What is the difference between a pebble and a grain of 
sand ? a pebble and a great piece of rock ? and a 
quarry ? These and other questions, when skilfully 
used, and the child is led to discover everything for 
himself, may be made a source of deep and abiding in- 
terest on the part of children. The philosophy of geog- 
raphy may begin, as soon as the child can make the 
slightest generalization. 

When the child has in his mind, the necessary sense 
products, he may begin to build the continents, as the 
next simplest step. The pupil can be led to imagine 
the continent, far easier than he can be led to imagine 
any part of it. Strange as it may seem at first thought, 
an entire continent is simpler, in its general construc- 
tion, than a single town or district. It is a mistake, 
then, to begin with states and sections, before the en- 
tire continent is imagined. 

There is a common rule in teaching geography, which 
leads to the teaching of the immediate surroundings of 



GEOGRAPHY, CONTINUED. 131 

the school-house, the district, the town, the county, 
the state. This order is illogical, because the county is 
more difficult to imagine, as I have said, than the 
entire continent. The reason why we teach the sur- 
roundings is misunderstood. The purpose of teaching 
that which can be seen and examined, is simply and 
solely, to enable the child to imagine the unseen. The 
great highlands, long slopes, and regular vertical forms 
of the whole continent, is, to my mind, the next sim- 
plest step, when the facts of elementary geography are 
in the child's mind. 

Another pedagogical rule is often wrongly applied : 
Begin with the whole, and go to the parts. Thus, many 
teachers think that the whole must be the great globe 
itself. The rule should be changed to : Begin with any 
whole that is in the mind, and go to the parts. Now, 
there are two kinds of wholes. One is the whole of 
sense grasp ; the other is the whole of the imagination. 
The latter depends entirely, as I have tried to show, 
upon the former. Not until the child has the acquired 
power of imaging or synthesizing the whole continent, 
is he able to analyze or even think of the parts ; how 
much less is he able to imagine the great round ball we 
call the earth ! The reasonable road to this knowledge 
is, first, sense products of geographical forms ; second, 
whole continents ; then, parts of continents ; and last, 
by means of the acquired power of synthesis, the whole 
globe. 

Mathematical geography, then, should be the last 
geographical subject taught. But from the first to the 
last, the facts necessary to the teaching of mathemati- 



132 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

cal geography should be picked up all along the line. 
The seasons, with all their changes of rain and sunshine, 
snow and ice, dry and wet weather ; growth and death 
of vegetation ; heat and cold ; the sun and its move- 
ments ; the moon and stars ; when they rise, how they 
look, what they do; so far as children can observe, should 
be made the constant subjects of observation. Mark 
out, on the floor, the limits of the sunbeams as they 
strike through the window. Do the same thing the 
next day, at the same hour. Note the difference, and 
wonder how it all comes about. 

Compare this teaching of real geography, that delights 
children at every step, that trains close observation, lays 
the foundation for the development of imagination, and 
forms the elementary steps of all physical sciences, 
with the rote learning of a mass of dry, disconnected 
facts, found in the so-called primary geography. Which 
does the most good ? is a question I leave for you to 
decide. 



TALK XX. 

GEOGRAPHY, CONTINUED. 

When the elementary facts have been carefully- 
gathered, the building of the continents should begin. 
By building of the continents, I mean, that the teacher 
should combine the acquired sense products, into a 
picture of the horizontal and vertical structure of the 
continent, so that the pupil can travel, in imagination, 
all over the structure, and mentally see its parts. This 
picture, at first, is a general one, a bird's-eye view, 
to be gradually filled up, and intensified in details, by 
all after-study of the continents. It is to form the 
mental framework of all the facts that will be after- 
ward learned. In this framework of memory, cities, 
boundaries, mining and agricultural regions, may be 
placed and retained. Geography, as commonly 
taught, leaves out the indispensable conception of 
upraised forms, and limits the study to the plain sur- 
face of a map, using the artificial helps to memory, of 
color and boundary lines. In this teaching of geog- 
raphy, maps, both plain and relief, together with de- 
scription, are used simply as aids in imagining the real 
continent. That is, the mind is to be carried beyond 
the symbols to the real things themselves. 

The general forms of continents are comparatively 



134 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

simple. In the first teaching, the teacher should try to 
fix this general form in the mind, with very little at- 
tention to details. The body of land we call a con- 
tinent consists wholly of slopes, bounded by rivers and 
coast-lines. It may be taken, at first, as one great 
mass of land raised above the sea. The first division 
that should be made, is a division into great and lesser 
upraised masses or highlands. These upraised masses 
are bounded by coast-lines on one side, and the line of 
the lowest level between them. The mountain ranges 
are simply the tops or apexes of these highlands. They 
form, in themselves, a very small part, comparatively, of 
the highland masses. Thus, we start from the Missis- 
sippi, the line of the lowest level between the eastern 
and western highlands, and travel west on that which 
looks like level ground, until we rise seven thousand 
feet above the sea, before a mountain is seen. 

I wish to speak now, of moulding these forms in sand, 
as an aid to the imagination in getting pictures of the 
upraised forms. First, let me say, that the moulding, 
like maps and other means of description, is simply and 
solely, a help to the imagination. If the mind sticks in 
the "mud-pie," as it is often called, the mud is of little 
or no use. The teacher should be constantly carrying 
the children's minds from the symbol to the symbol- 
ized. An objection is often made to relief maps, because 
they exaggerate heights. It is impossible to represent 
to the eye the relative heights of the earth's surface. If 
relief maps are not used, I would like to ask the objectors, 
What means have you of leading the pupils to imagine 
continental forms? As the mind is led from the relief 



GEOGRAPHY, CONTINUED. 135 

to the reality, when extent can be imagined, the rel- 
ative heights will take their true place. A board, or 
table, 3x4 feet, with raised edges ; half a barrel of sifted 
foundry sand, dampened so that it can be easily worked 
with the hands, is material enough for moulding. A few 
weeks' practice on your part, will enable you to mould 
any continental form with a considerable degree of 
skill 

You may begin in several ways. I should begin with 
the continent that has the simplest form — South America. 
Throw up the great highlands, that extend from the 
Straits of Magellan to Panama. Lead pupils to see how 
the highland determines the outline of the western 
coast. Compare the abrupt slope on one side, with the 
long and gradual slope on the other. Lead them to see 
that, if the western coast is determined by the high- 
lands, the eastern coast must also be so determined. 
That, if there were no other highlands, the waters of 
the Atlantic would cut into the land, so as to form two 
abrupt slopes on either side. Now, the lesser high- 
lands of Brazil, and Guiana may be thrown up, and the 
pupils will readily see what determines the outline of the 
eastern coast. Next, from the simple laws of drainage 
they have already learned, they will be able to locate 
the great river basins. The different degrees of fertility 
may also be discovered in the same way. Have each 
pupil mould the continent. For this purpose, small 
pieces of board with raised edges may be used, or shal- 
low tin pans, that can be placed on their desks. The 
discussions of the effect of the form, upon drainage, soil, 
and vegetation, should go on, hand in hand with the 



136 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

moulding. The outline of the continent may be drawn 
from the moulded form, and the great highlands and 
rivers designated. Drawing should be constantly used, 
from the beginning to the end of all geographical and 
historical teaching. The aim should not be to draw 
nice, accurate maps, but to express thought in a rapid 
way. The first thing, in all description in geography 
or history, should be, a map of the country or section 
under study. 

When the general form of one continent has been 
moulded, drawn, and studied, take the next in order of 
simplicity — North America. When North America has 
been moulded, the two continents should be compared. 
First, lead pupils to discover the resemblances between 
them ; then the differences. Have them drawn and 
moulded, in their relative position. Lead pupils to trace 
the great highland mass, from Patagonia to Alaska. 
Follow this with the moulding of Africa. By comparing 
this continent with North and South America, pupils 
may be led to discover the causes of the wonderful 
differences in their history, and development. They can 
reason from cause to effect, and by such reasoning, dis- 
cover what an immense influence structure has upon 
civilization. Asia and Europe, followed by Australia, 
may be successively moulded and drawn. The com- 
parisons should be constantly made. All the moulding 
and drawing, should be on a scale of distances, which 
will develop the power of judging extent. The con- 
tinents should be located on the globe, so that their rel- 
ative positions may be seen, and the proper preparation 
made for the study of mathematical geography. The 



GEOGRAPHY, CONTINUED. 137 

principal islands and groups of islands, should be studied 
in the same way as the continents. The continental 
islands may be discovered as broken fragments of the 
mainland. 

With this study of continental forms, descriptions of 
vegetation, climate, soil and peoples, should go on ; 
not in a definite and particular way, but enough should 
be given to feed the imagination, to arouse curiosity, 
and clothe the dry bones of the structure with the 
warm coloring of living forms. Children should read 
travels, bits of history, etc., in connection with this 
work of moulding and drawing. 



TALK XXI. 

GEOGRAPHY, CONCLUDED. 

We have now the general picture of the great land 
masses that rise above the sea. The pupil can recall 
them, can travel over them in imagination. With the 
placing of the continents in their relative positions on 
the globe, some conception of climate may be taught. 
Locating the great rivers and their basins, has brought 
the children to the study of drainage ; and this, in turn, 
has furnished a basis to the study of vegetation. The 
soil, and great staple productions of all the con- 
tinents, may be now learned quicker and better, than 
the soil and productions of a single country, in the old 
way, of memorizing facts, which were the staple products 
of the old geographies. All the maps of the continents 
may be drawn upon the board in their relative positions, 
as they appear on the Mercator Projection. The soil 
may be divided into fertile, arable, and barren, and 
indicated by colored crayons upon the maps. Lessons 
upon soil should be given, and specimens of the various 
kinds of earth, from gravel to vegetable mould, ex- 
amined. If you have a bit of ground near the school- 
house, raise all the different kinds of useful plants that 
you can. Then, take up successively all the great food 
staples. Locate the wheat, the rice, the corn, the 



GEOGRAPHY, CONCLUDED. 139 

potato, and the rye regions, and indicate them, as I 
have said, in colors on the maps. Follow these, with 
the luxuries in the way of food — coffee, tea, cocoa, etc. 
Then the subject of shelter and fuel may be studied, 
the forests and kinds of wood. Lessons should be 
given upon specimens of wood. Plants used for cloth- 
ing may come next ; the cotton and flax, the caoutchouc, 
etc., may be located. This study of plants, as I have 
said, leads us directly to the study of Botany. 

From vegetation they may go to animals. These may 
be classified, and their haunts discovered ; animals for 
food, animals for clothing, beasts of burden, domestic 
and wild animals. This distribution may be noted, by 
drawing the animals on the maps, as they are distributed 
over the surface of the earth. You will readily see that, 
by this work, you have created a necessity for the study 
of Zoology. 

Next, mines and quarries may be located. Stone and 
metals for shelter, for machinery, and for money and 
luxury may be dug from the bowels of the earth, by the 
eager imagination of the pupil. Coal and salt mines 
may be explained, and the wonderful story of their 
creation be told. We are thus brought naturally to the 
study of geology and mineralogy. The study of the 
structure, as I told you, leads directly to the study of 
the construction. 

The earth is now made ready for the abode of man, 
and man, the animal, will now take his place on the earth, 
created in the minds of the children. Lessons should 
be given on the races of men ; and their peculiarities, 
customs, and habits described. The races may be 



140 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

located upon the maps, by coloring the maps as the 
races are colored. How do men live ? In what kind of 
houses ? What clothing do they wear ? What do they 
eat ? Pupils have been prepared by the previous 
lessons to answer these questions, with one exception — 
that of the products brought from countries by com- 
merce. Lessons on government, should now be given — 
how men found governments, adapted to their particular 
states of barbarity or civilization. Then, all the con- 
tinents may be divided up by boundary lines of red 
chalk, into political divisions. In two or three days, if 
the work I have indicated has been properly done, all the 
political divisions of the earth, and their relative posi- 
tions, may be easily taught ; and more than that, pupils 
will be ready to answer these questions of each political 
division. What is the surface and soil of this country ? 
Climate? What the productions? The animals and 
race of men ? The foundation thus thoroughly laid, en- 
ables the child to learn more of the world in one week, 
than the children who memorize the conglomerated 
mass of disconnected facts can learn, in a year. There 
is a place made for everything, and everything is put in 
its place. 

We are now ready for the founding of cities, because 
we know the conditions under which cities may be 
founded. Here, the various industries may be grouped 
and studied. The farmer on his farm, the smith in his 
shop, the weaver at his loom. The necessity and in- 
vention of machinery, for the economizing of force. 
The use of steam and water power, and electricity, in 
manufactures. The pupils will readily discover that 



GEOGRAPHY, CONCLUDED. 141 

the countries containing small, quick-flowing rivers, 
must be the centres of manufacturing interests. Com- 
merce, may be made an excellent review of what pupils 
have already learned. What do certain peoples want ? 
When and how will they get it ? Then comes the 
necessity for ships, steamers, railway cars, and beasts of 
burden. Routes on the ocean may be traced from city 
to city, and country to country, and the great lines of 
iron rails stretched across the continents. 

The relative positions of the countries may now be 
fixed in the mind, by lines of latitude and longitude, and 
the climates may be studied on the same lines, and the 
causes of the differences in climate be discovered. 

The next step I would suggest, is the study of a few 
very important countries. Important, as they relate to 
the world's progress and civilization. The United 
States should be thoroughly studied, as a preparation 
for our history. Great Britain, France, and Germany 
should be studied for the same purpose. Egypt, Pales- 
tine, Greece, Italy, and Spain, should be separately 
studied as a preparation for the study of Ancient His- 
tory. The pupils are now ready to watch, with great 
eagerness and close observation, the changing mass of 
mankind, as they move over the stage, that has been so 
carefully prepared in their imagination. They are now 
ready for History. 

Collateral reading should be kept up from the begin- 
ning to the end of all this work. Histories, adapted to 
the children ; stories, travels, descriptions of animals 
and plants ; all may be very profitably used at every 
stage of progress. 



142 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

Objects — kinds of plants, woods, articles of food, 
clothing, fuel, implements of labor, models of shelters 
of all countries and nations, should be collected into a 
school museum, and used in teaching, as they are needed. 
When objects fail, pictures should be used. Of these, 
every teacher can easily make a very large collection, 
cut from illustrated papers, magazines, books, etc., 
neatly pasted upon cheap card-board, and classified. 
One set may be used for landscapes, another for water 
views, others for shelter, cities, animals, races of men, 
and the various industries. 

This is but a brief outline of the new, and compara- 
tively untried science of Geography. The great diffi- 
culty in the way of its introduction, can be traced to the 
terrible power of habits, fixed by our own imperfect 
education. The teaching of the science of Geography, 
depends almost entirely upon the power to use the 
imagination. In my limited experience, I find that the 
imagination, instead of being developed by the usual 
methods of teaching, is crushed, and nearly obliterated, 
so far as the action of the mind is concerned in study. 
The first thing for us to do, my dear teachers, is to con- 
vince ourselves, by careful and thoughtful study, that 
there is a real science of Geography. After this is done, 
We may have the courage and persistence, so much 
needed for its application in teaching. 



TALK XXII. 

HISTORY. 

Two things should be acquired by the study of history 
in grammar schools. First, an ardent love for history ; 
second a plan or method of studying the subject. The 
main practical purpose of the study of history is, to guide 
our steps in social, political, and religious progress. This 
philosophy of history, cannot be studied to any great ex- 
tent until the student reaches the high school or college. 
The study of history in the grammar schools, should be 
confined to the collection and arrangement of facts nec- 
essary to the generalization upon which the philosophy 
of history depends. The place of history in mental de- 
velopment, is found in the means it affords for increasing 
the power of the imagination and deduction. Generali- 
zations learned and recited by rote, before the facts are 
known, encumber the mind with useless rubbish. There 
are very few text books that can be used profitably in 
grammar schools, because they are, for the most part, 
filled with such generalizations. Higginson's " Young 
Folk's History of the United States" is an exception. 

The active imagination of the child, so strongly 
marked in his ardent love for stories, may be developed 
into a still greater love for history. I have spoken 
briefly, in a former talk, of the use of fairy and mytho- 



144 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

logical stories in mental development. The child's in- 
tense desire to use his imagination continually, is the 
foundation of this love. Fairy stories, to the child, are 
like the parables of the Master ; they contain the seeds 
of truth, that will germinate and fructify in the child's 
mind, far better than the truth grown to its full stature, 
and embodied in maxims and precepts. Every teacher 
should be an excellent story-teller, so as to make the 
half hour each day given to story-telling, a delightful 
one to the children. As the child gains experience, by 
contact and communing with his fellows, there comes a 
time, when the real should take the place of the ficti- 
tious, and all the child's love for fancy may be carried 
over and become more intensified, in his love for the 
real. Short, carefully selected, and well-told stories, 
make a good beginning for the elementary study of his- 
tory. It matters not whether these stories be taken from 
ancient or modern history. They should be brief, sim- 
ple, well told. Tell the children the story, and have 
them tell it back in their own language. Then let them 
write it, as I said in my talk upon language ; this fur- 
nishes one of the best means of talking with the pencil. 
Work like this may be given in the fourth year. Pictures, 
representing historical scenes, like the " Landing of 
Columbus," the " Discovery of the Mississippi," etc., 
may be used with excellent effect, both for language 
and history lessons. First, have pupils describe what 
they see in the picture, thus arousing their curiosity, 
and then tell them the story. Two years, at least, may 
be profitably spent in this work. Reading, after the 
third year, of easy and interesting books upon history 



HISTORY. 145 

may be introduced. Books like " Stories of American 
History," Quackenbos's " Elementary History," and, 
Mrs. Monroe's " Our Country." These may be read as 
regular reading lessons. Pupils should be required to 
tell what they have read, both orally and in writing. 
The sixth year may be spent to advantage in the study 
of the biographies of a few great men and women, 
around whose history very important facts can be 
grouped. 

In the seventh year, more direct study of history should 
begin. It is a great mistake to teach the history of the 
United States, unconnected with the history of other 
nations, whose acts made our history possible. From 
1492 on, the history of all peoples that had so much to do 
with the formation of our own nation ; Italy, Spain, 
France, Holland, Germany, and Great Britain should 
be studied. In teaching Spanish or French discoveries, 
one or more topics may be arranged for the teaching of 
Spain and France at the time of these discoveries. One 
great difficulty in the teaching of history, that puzzles 
teachers and text-book makers, is the immense number 
of facts that may be taught. A careful selection of the 
subjects to be taught, is of the first importance. Two 
rules should govern, in the selection of topics. First, 
select subjects that are interesting ; second, choose 
those topics which bear directly on the development of 
the progress of the nation, or upon its failure and down- 
fall. That is, the teaching of all facts should be so 
directed, that the pupil when the proper time comes, 
may be able to study effectively the philosophy of his- 
tory. The course of study in history, during the 



146 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

seventh and eighth years, should consist of a carefully- 
selected and arranged number of topics, that cover the 
salient points in the history of a country. They should 
be so arranged, that one may be developed into the 
other, and the whole form a framework of history, into 
which all after facts may come in their proper places. 
Do not choose too many topics. One topic, so taught 
as to arouse genuine interest, and love for reading his- 
tory, will do more good than a hundred, superficially 
taught. Bear in mind that your purpose is to create 
a love for history. You are generating a power, that is 
to act during the child's life. Teaching the child to 
memorize page after page of dry dates and empty gen- 
eralizations, is the best means to induce weakness, and 
disgust pupils, so that they will look upon history all 
their days as an unpleasant study. 

That which interests children the most is, the facts 
that come nearest to their own experience, [expanded 
and exaggerated, of course]. Thus, the inner life of a 
people may be made intensely interesting. How they 
lived, the kind of houses, what they ate, their clothing, 
customs, and manners, should form a very considerable 
part of all the teaching of history. Besides, in these 
facts, we find the true secret of the failure or growth of 
nations ; of which the governments, wars, and great 
events are simply the outcome. A real picture of how a 
tribe or nation lives, the family and social relations, the 
education and customs, is of more philosophical value, 
than the lives of Alexander, Caesar, or Napoleon ; for the 
first made the latter possible, they furnished the con- 
ditions through which great men become great. 



HISTORY. 147 

In the talks upon geography, I tried to show you of 
what immense importance, the knowledge of the struct- 
ure of the earth's surface is, in remembering and under- 
standing history. How the varying slopes make up the 
character of the continent, and influence the civilization 
of its peoples. The main point which I wish to impress 
upon you now, is, that a clear and distinct picture of the 
stage, upon which the drama of a nation's history moves, 
is absolutely essential, in fixing the various facts and 
scenes in the memory. The structure remains nearly 
the same throughout the ages, and it is only by the close 
association of the ever-changing scenes of time, with the 
clearest notions of immovable space, that these scenes 
can be retained in their relations and developments. 
The first thing to be done, then, in teaching any topic, 
is, to fix the stage or structure upon which the scenes 
were enacted, very clearly in the mind. This may be 
done best, by moulding the structure in sand, upon the 
moulding-board, and then, by drawing the horizontal 
outline on the blackboard. No attempt should ever be 
made to teach a fact in history without the close accom- 
paniment of moulding and drawing. 

History cannot be well taught from one book. I would, 
if possible, have each pupil obtain a different book. 
There should be in every school a collection of histories 
for reference and reading. Works of fiction should also 
be included. Give out a topic, and ask pupils to read it 
up, mentioning the best sources of information at their 
disposal. In recitation, have them tell what they have 
read ; add to their store of knowledge by giving them 
your own ; arouse their curiosity, thus leading them to 



148 NOTES OF TALKS OX TEACHING. 

read in certain directions ; discussions may be held on 
disputed points, and authorities cited. The teacher 
should mould all that the pupils bring, into systematic or- 
der, and, finally, when pupils are full of the subject, have 
them write out all they have learned. When the day of 
examination arrives, select one or more of the topics, and 
have pupils tell, with their pens, all they know about it. 
The marking should be upon the pupil's power of re- 
search, expression in original language, and finally upon 
the use of language. 

Very much of the pupil's power in learning history 
depends upon his ability to read well, i.e., to get 
thought accurately and rapidly by means of words. By 
this plan all mere rote-learning is entirely avoided. 
The memorizing of dates should be confined to the 
events that mark great epochs in history. Dates should 
be used simply as labels upon subjects that have been 
made very interesting to pupils. 

The danger of using one book, is, that by it, pupils 
will be led to pin their faith to an author. By using 
many books they will soon find how facts, causes and 
results, differ under the different authorities. They will 
discover for themselves, that even the best authorities are 
not always reliable. The teacher should avoid dogmatic 
opinions in regard to politics and religion. Pupils, if 
left to their own research, will find out for themselves 
the important fact, that it was not because men were 
Republicans or Democrats, Protestants or Catholics, 
that so many bad acts have been performed by various 
sects and parties ; but because the lust for power, and 
love for cruelty drives men to the commission of crime, 



IHSTOKY. 149 

no matter what their party name or sect may be. To 
teach a child that the Protestants were always right and 
pure, that the Catholics were always wrong and unjust, 
is radically false and wicked. A great love for truth and 
justice should be developed by real teaching. In my 
experience, children may be led to love the reading of 
history more than they do that of fiction. It is won- 
derful, it would seem almost incredible, if a painful ex- 
perience had not taught us otherwise, that the learning 
of history can be made a repulsive drudgery on the part 
of children. Truly, the invention of the school-master 
has been carried to the bitter end, when children can be 
trained into a dislike for the study of the grand scenes, 
of which history is so rich and full. 



TALK XXIII. 

EXAMINATIONS. 

I believe that the greatest obstacle in the way of real 
teaching to-day, is the standard of examinations. The 
cause is not far to seek. The standard for the work has 
a powerful influence on the work itself. What should 
examinations be ? The test of real teaching — of genuine 
work. What is teaching ? Teaching is the evolution 
of thought, and thought is the mind's mode of action. 
Teaching arouses mental activity, so as to develop the 
mind in the best possible way, and at the same time, 
leads to the acquisition of that knowledge which is most 
useful to the mind and its development. There is one 
other important factor to be considered, and that is, the 
training of that skill which leads to the proper expres- 
sion of the thought evolved. This factor in teaching, is 
usually called training, the results of which are correct 
modes of expression, such as talking, writing, drawing, 
making, and building. All school work, then, is com- 
prehended in thought and its expression. It must be 
understood at every step, that expression is only neces- 
sary when thought is evolved. Train expression at the 
expense of thought, and we have the body without the 
living soul. 
Real teaching, meaning by this the evolution of thought, 



EX A Ml TV A TIONS. 



[ 5* 



and the training of its expression, does not aim at the 
learning of disconnected facts. Real teaching leads to 
the systematic, symmetrical, all-sided upbuilding of a 
compact body of knowledge in the mind. Every faculty 
of the mind — perception, judgment, classification, rea- 
son, imagination, and memory — is brought into action 
in this upbuilding, or z'/^struction ; and the foundations 
are laid broad and deep, in sense-products. Words and 
all other means of expression, are simply indications of 
thought-building, and its •complicated processes. Ex- 
aminations, then, should test the conditions and prog- 
ress, of mind in its development. The means of ex- 
amination are found in language, oral and written, in 
drawing, and all other forms of expression. 

If I am not mistaken, the examinations usually given, 
simply test the pupil's power of memorizing discon- 
nected facts. Take, for illustration, the innumerable 
facts in history ; of these, that which a child can learn in 
a course of four or five years' vigorous study would be 
as a drop of water to the ocean. It would be an easy 
matter, to set an examination of ten seemingly simple 
questions in history, for Mommsen, Curtius, Droysen, 
Bancroft, and other eminent historians, which they 
would utterly fail to pass. How, then, can we judge of 
a child's knowledge hy asking ten questions ? The 
same can be said of geography and the natural sciences. 
The fact is, the only just way to examine pupils is, to 
find out what the teacher has taught, and her manner 
and method of teaching. Examination should find out 
what a child does know, and not what he does not know. 
Suppose, then, that in the example just mentioned, the 



152 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

pupils have been under the guidance of a skillful teacher, 
who has given out, one after another, the most interest- 
ing subjects to be found in history, and had her pupils 
read all they could find in various books about them, 
and after taking these acquired treasures of knowledge, 
and arranging the events in logical order, had finally 
had the children write out in good English the whole 
story. The test of such work would simply be, to re- 
quest the pupils to tell orally, or on paper, all they 
knew about Columbus, Walter Raleigh, Bunker Hill, or 
any other interesting subject they have studied. 

It is very easy, for one accustomed to such examina- 
tions, to judge of the true teaching power of the teacher 
by the written papers. If meaningless words have been 
memorized, if there is a lack of research, investigation, 
and original thought, the results will be painfully ap- 
parent. Whatever the teacher has done, or failed to do, 
can be readily comprehended by an expert in examina- 
tion. In the same way geography and the sciences may 
be examined. The test of spelling, penmanship, com- 
position, punctuation, and the power to use correct 
language, can be tested in no better way than by the 
writing of such compositions as these. 

Examinations should not be made the test of fitness 
for promotion. If the teacher really teaches, and faith- 
fully watches the mental growth of her pupils, through 
the work of one or two years, she alone is the best 
judge of the fitness of her pupils to do the work of the 
next grade. If she does not teach, it is impossible for 
her to prepare her pupils for advanced work. The great 
question for the supervisor to decide is, Has the teacher 



EX A MINA riONS. 1 5 3 

the ability to instruct the children in the proper 
manner and by the best methods ? Is it possible for a 
supervisor to find out in one hour, by a series of set 
questions, more than the teacher, who watches care- 
fully the development of her pupils for one or two 
years ? 

Those who understand children, will readily appreci- 
ate the excitement and strain under which they labor, 
when their fate depends upon the correct answering of 
ten disconnected questions. It is well known to you, 
that some of the best pupils, generally do their worst in 
the confusion that attends such highly-wrought nervous 
states. How much better, then, is it to take the entire 
work of the pupil for the whole year, than the results of 
one hour, under such adverse conditions? 

Again, examinations demand more than the children 
can perform. What teacher ever received a class from 
a lower grade, fully prepared for the work fixed by 
the examination for her grade ? I have never found 
one. Supposing children have been in the school three 
or four years under poor teaching, and do not know 
anything thoroughly — cannot read, write, reckon, or 
think. Now the teacher who takes such poorly pre- 
pared pupils, must choose one of two courses. She 
must do the children under her charge the greatest 
possible good, by teaching them thoroughly what they 
have failed to learn, and then have them fail entirely 
of passing the uniform examinations ; or by sheer force 
of verbal memory, the paragraphs, pages, and proposi- 
tions necessary for the test, may be put into their 
minds. •' Having," says Spencer, " by our method in- 



154 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

duced helplessness, we straightway make helplessness 
the reason for our method.'" 

Perfect freedom should be given the teacher to do 
the best work in her own way. That is, the highest 
good of the child should be the sole aim of the teacher, 
without the slightest regard for false standards. The 
teacher who strives for examinations and promotions, 
can never really teach. The only true motive that should 
govern the teacher, must spring from the truth, found in 
the nature of the child's mind and the subject taught. 

The purpose of the superintendent's examination 
should be, to ascertain whether the principals under his 
charge, have the requisite ability and knowledge to 
organize, supervise, and teach a large school. The ex- 
aminations of the principal, should test the teaching 
power of his teachers ; and lastly, the teacher should 
test, by examinations, the mental growth of her pupils. 
This is the true economical system of responsibility. 
First, ascertain whether superintendent, principal, and 
teacher can be trusted, and then trust them. 

The answer to this proposition, I have heard a 
thousand times. " Your plan would be good enough, 
if we had good teachers. The fault is, that the teachers 
are so poor we cannot trust them. If we did not ex- 
amine them in this way, they would absolutely do 
nothing." The fallacy of this answer may be exposed 
in two ways, First, a uniform examination of discon- 
nected questions, prevents the good teacher from exer- 
cising her art ; second, the poor teacher will never be 
able to see the wide margin between good work and 
that which she does, until the true test of real teaching 



EX A MINA TIONS. 1 5 5 

is placed before her. There has been legislation enough 
for poor teachers and poor teaching. Give the good 
teachers a chance ! The testimony of countless good 
teachers has been uniform in this respect. When asked, 
•' Why don't you do better work ?" " Why don't you 
use the methods taught in normal schools, and advocated 
by educational periodicals and books ?" The answer is, 
" We cannot do it. Look at our course of study. In 
three weeks, or months, these children will be examined. 
We have not one moment of time to spend in real teach- 
ing !" No wonder that teaching is a trade and not an 
art ! No wonder there is little or no demand for books 
upon the science and art of teaching, such as " Payne's 
Lectures," etc. The demand fixed by examiners is for 
cram, and not for an art ; and so long as the demand 
exists, so long will the teacher's mind shrivel and dwarf, 
in the everlasting treadmill that has no beginning or 
end, and the more it turns the more it creaks ! So 
long, too, will this tinkering of immortal souls go on ! 
Teachers often complain of their social position, their 
salaries, and the lack of sympathy in the public. '* The 
fault," dear teachers, " is not in our stars, but in our- 
selves, that we are underlings." Instead of stubbornly 
standing, and obstinately denying that there is no need 
of reform, and that all so-called new methods are worth- 
less ; let us honestly, earnestly, prayerfully study the 
great science of teaching. Let us learn, and courage- 
ously apply the truths that shall set us free ; and the 
day will soon come when the teacher will lead society, 
and mould opinion. 



TALK XXIV. 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 



The highest intellectual result brought about by 
elementary instruction is, the power of attention to 
those objects which have the greatest influence in de- 
veloping the mind. It may also be said, that higher 
education consists in developing that power of the mind, 
which enables it to concentrate all its strength upon 
subjects within itself. To use a psychological term, the 
first conscious work is upon the object-object ; the 
second, upon the subject-object. The greatest effect, 
either of attention or concentration, is brought about by 
an effort of the will, to withdraw everything from the 
consciousness except the object or subject of thought. 
The highest result of all government, from whatsoever 
influence it may come, is found in the most complete 
control of the reason over the will, in all mental and 
moral acts. Before the child can reason, the mother 
must be the child's will ; but neither mother nor 
teacher should ever usurp the place of reason. Just as 
soon as a child can act from his own right impulse, he 
should be allowed to do so. Many a prudent parent 
has remained the will of the child, until the time when 
self-control can be acquired was past, and the moment 
the guidance of the parent failed, the child, often found 
himself drifting on the sea of life, a hopeless wreck. 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 157 

The highest motive of school government, is to give 
the child the power and necessary reason to control 
himself. The immediate and direct motive of school 
government is, the limitation of mental power to at- 
tention. That order is the best, which leads the child 
to withdraw attention from all other objects except the 
one in hand. Whether the purpose be thinking, or per- 
forming some act of skill, or both, the direct motive 
of order remains the same. Attention does not consist 
of the attitude of the body, but of the mind. Pupils 
may stare intently at a book, may be paying the strictest 
attention, to the eyes of the teacher, while their minds 
are ''over the hills and far away." There is a vast 
difference between real and apparent attention. In the 
one, the thing attended to, fills and controls the con- 
sciousness ; in the other, the body may be in correct 
attitude, the eye fixed upon the object, the picture of 
the object may be upon the retina, but the presence of 
other objects of thought in the consciousness, shuts 
out all perception of the object seen. Attention may be 
impelled by a desire springing from within, from the 
attractiveness of the object ; or compelled from with- 
out, by the will of the teacher, who expresses her will 
by means of rewards and punishments. The first great 
question, then, for the teacher to decide, is, To what ex- 
tent can the attractiveness of the object be made to con- 
trol attention ? That is, in what measure can the in- 
terest of the child, and the love of work, be excited and 
quickened, so as to reduce the amount of rewards and 
punishments ? 

The natural growth of the child, both mentally and 



158 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

physically, is a healthy, happy growth. That the 
growth may be natural, the means of growth must be 
exactly adapted at every step, to the varying conditions 
of the child. No one will deny this proposition, so far 
as it relates to physical growth. Food, exercise, and 
clothing, that meet the exact wants of the child, pro- 
duce the best conditions for health and strength. I be- 
lieve that this truth applies with equal power to the 
mind as to the body. We have many criticisms upon 
the so-called natural teaching, as though it were a kind 
of teaching, that led the child to grow in some wild, un- 
certain way, following his own propensities and desires. 
This is one of the many shallow criticisms that emanate 
from those who are troubled by the New Education, 
and not having studious habits, that would enable them 
to study thoroughly the reasons for better teaching, they 
reply to everything by stale, ready-made, stock argu- 
ments. Natural teaching, means nothing more nor less 
than the exact adaptation of the subject taught, to the 
learning mind ; and that adaptation, leads the mind to 
grow in a normal, healthy way. As that physical exercise 
which is best suited to the growth and strength of the 
body always delights the heart, so the natural exercise 
of the mind must bring a still higher pleasure. 

Play, is God's elementary method of training the child 
to work. The kindergarten is founded upon the child's 
intense love of play. Who ever saw anything but con- 
stant delight on the faces of the little children in a 
true kindergarten, where hands and heads and hearts, 
are in continual harmonious action ? The secret lies in 
the fact that the child's life consists of building, weav- 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 159 

ing, drawing, taking apart and putting together, and 
at the same time feeding the imagination for higher 
flights. When should this delightful play and work 
stop ? When the primary teacher meets him at the door 
of a castle, fetters his active limbs to a hard seat, and 
imprisons his expanding mind in a narrow cell walled 
by unmeaning hieroglyphics ? No ! A thousand times 
no ! It is cruelty to stop the blessed work done in the 
kindergarten. Froebel said, that the principles he dis- 
covered and advocated, when thoroughly applied, would 
revolutionize the world ; and he was right. In the kin- 
dergarten, is the seed-corn and germination of the New 
Education and the nejv life. The seed has been 
planted, the buds and flowers are turned toward the sun: 
let not the chilling frost of traditional teaching blight 
and wither them. One and all of the true principles of 
education are applied in the kindergarten ; these prin- 
ciples should be applied, (simply changing the applica- 
ion to adapt it to different stages of growth) through 
all education, up to the gates of heaven. 

The struggle of development, consists in acquiring 
knowledge and skill so thoroughly that it can sink into 
the automatic, thus leaving the mind free for new at- 
tainments. The conflict between the kindergarten and 
the old education, is the strife for the mastery, between 
two vastly different ideals — the ideal of quantity learning 
and the ideal of harmonious mental growth. The one 
must be compelled, as it always has been, by the rod 
or ignoble emulation ; the other finds its glowing im- 
pulses in the inward joy of living, and growing, just as 
the mind's Creator designed, when He planted in the 



160 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

human mind, the vast possibilities to be realized by the 
application of His truth. I mean by this, that all the 
teaching in our schools, if Nature be followed, will 
bring decided and permanent pleasure. One great 
reason why we continue unnatural teaching, may be 
found in the fact, that the strongest tendencies and im- 
pulses of beautiful child-nature are utterly ignored. 
Every child loves nature : the birds, flowers, and beasts 
are a source of exhaustless curiosity and wonder. Carry 
this love into the school-room, bring the child closer 
and closer to the thought of God and His creatures, 
and that implanted desire to know more and more of 
His works, will never cease. 

Reading, writing, spelling, numbers, are simply the 
means of getting an education, and they may be all 
beautifully taught, under the delightful stimulus of that 
which a child loves. The child has a strong desire to 
express his thoughts in the concrete, by re-creating the 
forms that come into his mind. He makes mud-pies, 
hills and valleys, fences and houses, with childish glee. 
Carry this same impelling tendency into the school- 
room ; lay the foundation of the grand science of ge- 
ometry, by moulding in clay. Next to the child's love 
for making forms, comes the joy he finds in drawing ; a 
child loves to draw, as well as if not better, than he loves 
to talk. Continue this love, by putting crayon or pencil 
in his hand as soon as he enters school, and give him 
free room to express all he can. These tendencies are the 
thrifty roots of true mental and moral growth ; foster and 
nurture them by good teaching, and soon we will have a 
new and better race of men. It is a hard thing to say, 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 161 

but a strong belief in the immense possibilities in the 
human mind to grow far beyond any past attainments, 
compels me to express what I believe, and that is, that 
mojt primary teaching, crushes the best and highest ten- 
dencies of the mind, blights and withers imagination, 
stultifies reason, and then (by artificial methods) strives 
earnestly and honestly to build up the mind, on this 
ruined foundation. 

I may have wandered far from my subject ; but the 
point I wish to make, is, that the attractiveness of the 
subject, if naturally taught, will create a genuine 
enthusiastic love for study, and develop the closest and 
most- prolonged attention, thus making the will of the 
teacher a secondary and subordinate element in school 
government. Opposed to this, is the teaching of a 
quantity of knowledge, and the acquisition of skill, with- 
out regard to natural adaptation. So far as my experi- 
ence goes, most children are reading in books far above 
their range and power of thinking. They are going 
through the arithmetic, with an insufficient knowledge of 
the elements. They are learning page after page of 
generalizations and facts, that mean little or nothing to 
them. The teachers are preparing words for the ex- 
amination, and neglecting to prepare the child for the 
struggle of life. 

Such teaching must, as I have said, be enforced by the 
hope of rewards, or the fear of punishment. There is 
no alternative. The glittering bauble of a high mark, 
or a diploma, must lure the fainting and famished pupil 
on, or the rod at his back must drive him. Without 
these incentives there is no motion. Compare the 



1 62 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

sterility and barrenness of stupid word learning, with the 
richness and variety which the full action of all the 
mental powers — observation, judgment, imagination, 
and reason — causes, and we need not seek farther for the 
motives that induce the children, under one kind of in- 
struction to hate school and learning ; and under the 
other, to love school work with all their hearts. 

One of the stale, old, often-repeated, stock arguments 
is, that the methods used, are those of entertainment and 
pleasure. That the child must be trained to face the 
stern realities of life, by strict discipline and hard work. 
This objection is so venerable, and at the same time so 
stupid, that it is hardly worth the time it takes, to 
answer it. Because the mind finds pleasure in natural 
growth, ergo, the teaching should be unnatural, in order 
to discipline its powers. As if the road to success in 
life, lay in tormenting the child with all the sharp thorns 
and hard pebbles that can be placed therein ! What 
man ever made a true success in this world, who did not 
love his work, and pursue it with a genuine enthusiasm ? 
Education is the generation of power ; power to over- 
come obstacles, power to toil, and struggle, and fight. 
There are plenty of real obstacles, that lie in the pathway 
of human development and progress, without the inven- 
tion of a single artificial one. The entire purpose of 
education consists of training the child to work, to 
work systematically, to love work, and to put his brains 
and heart into work. The more a child loves work, the 
more energy he will bring to it. The more brains he 
puts into it, the better, and the more economically it will 
be done. 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 1 63 

I claim two things : First, that there is not one moment 
to spend upon anything, for the mere sake of discipline, 
that has not a practical use in the mind's upbuilding ; 
second, that if the work be adapted to the state of 
mental and physical power, ability ; if every onward 
movement brings success, if the work be real [that is 
upon real things and not drudgery], if we learn to do by 
doing, the pleasure of doing, and its resultant successes, 
best fits a man to control himself, and master all the 
difficulties and obstacles that lie before him. 

I am aware that I have been painting an ideal school, 
under ideal teaching. Many of you, no doubt, are anx- 
iously asking the question, " What shall we do, who are 
training children who have not had the benefits of the 
kindergarten and the best primary teaching "? I must re- 
fer you, for the answer to this important question, to the 
other means of limiting attention ; i.e., your wills used 
in governing children, who are not attracted by their 
work. " Fear is the beginning of wisdom." The first 
important element on your part, necessary to govern a 
school well, is self-control ; the second, courage. The 
children, after the innocence of the first year is past, 
have formed a habit that leads them to govern you, if 
you cannot govern them. They study you, as soldiers 
do a fortress that they intend to attack. If there is one 
weak point indicated by your presence, in movement, 
attitude, or expression, they will make the charge there. 
If you can be teased, irritated, or made angry they, 
will find, for want of better things, the greatest pleasure 
in sticking pins (figurative) into the weak places of 
your moral anatomy. If you threaten, they take great 



1 64 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

delight in listening to your threats. If you scold, they 
will invent ways of perpetuating the process. But if 
they see in you, a quiet, unalterable determination to 
control them, softened and strengthened by a great love 
for children, in most cases, their surrender will be com- 
plete and permanent ; provided you have already at 
hand, some nutritious and tasteful food, in the way of 
good teaching and training. Give them something to 
do, the first moment you enter the schoolroom. Show 
them how skilful you are, in all points of technical train- 
ing, without being ostentatious, and they will soon for- 
get their desire to badger and control you, in the 
pleasure of doing. 

But perfect courage and self-control, is ideal again. 
11 What if I haven't these qualities ?" you ask. " How 
shall I meet a rebellious boy ?" You see, I cannot avoid 
the great question of corporal punishment. Putting it 
in its right place, it is, at best, but a poor substitute for 
a teacher's lack of moral power and skill. If the 
choice between anarchy, misrule, and comparative 
order must be made, I am bound to recommend, in such 
cases, the judicious use of a good rattan. Corporal 
punishment is far preferable to scolding ; that turns a 
schoolroom into a perpetual washing-day. It is prefer- 
able to many inventions that have been discovered to 
avoid straightforward punishment — such as shutting 
children up in dark closets, making them stand for 
hours in the floor, sending them home, or keeping them 
after school. If you punish in anger, you simply en- 
hance the difficulty. Anger begets anger. The sting 
of the rod must be accompanied by the genuine sym- 



SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 165 

pathy of real love. This is one of the painful subjects 
which must be met by every teacher, until the kinder- 
garten and true teaching, have done their effectual work 
with the little children. " Fear is the beginning of 
wisdom," but " Perfect love casteth out fear L" 



TALK XXV. 

MORAL TRAINING. 

No matter how much educators may differ, in regard 
to the means and methods of teaching, upon one point, 
there is substantial agreement ; viz. that the end and 
aim of all education, is the development of character. 
There is also, little or no difference of opinion, in regard 
to the elements that form the common ideal of 
character. Love of truth, justice, and mercy ; benevo- 
lence, humility, energy, patience, and perseverance, are 
recognized the world over, as some of the essentials that 
should govern human action. True character, is recog- 
nized and felt, by all classes and conditions of society ; 
though they may be incapable of its analysis. Just as 
the lower types of intellect, feel the power of the few 
masterpieces of art, without knowing its source. 

All the knowledge and skill of an individual, all he 
thinks, knows, and does, is manifested in his character. 
Character is the summation of all these manifestations. 
Character, is the expression of all that is in the mind ; 
and it may be analyzed into habits. A habit, is the 
tendency and desire to do that which we have repeatedly 
done before. A habit then, consists in doing, the 
primary foundation of which, is to be found in the pos- 
sibilities for action that lie latent in the mind of the 



MORAL TRAINING. 167 

new-born child. The environment of the child, 
determines the kind, quality, and direction of its mental 
action. Education adapts the environment, by limiting 
it to those circumstances which lead the mind to act in 
the right manner, and in the right direction. The 
mother and teacher, be it through ignorance or knowl- 
edge, determine the doing of the child. The true 
teacher, leads the child to do that which ought to be 
done. The famous principle of Comenius ; " Things 
that have to be done, should be learned by doing them," 
includes in its category, the whole truth that shoutS 
govern every parent and teacher in building the char- 
acter of a child. Everything that may determine 
action, be it religious precepts, moral maxims, the best 
influences, or whatever of good may be brought to bear 
upon the child, find their limitations in what they in- 
spire, and stimulate the child to do. 

The opinion prevails among many teachers, that 
intellectual development, is, by its nature, separate and 
distinct from moral training. Of all the evils in our 
schools, this terrible mistake is productive of the 
greatest. The powers of the mind, determine by their 
limitations, all human action. There is no neutral 
ground. Every thing done, has a moral, or immoral 
tendency. That is, doing, forms by repetition, a habit, 
and habits make up character. Let no one think that 
I am trenching on religious or theological grounds. I 
simply repeat what I have said before ; the greatest 
truths of religion, the highest forms of morality, nature 
and art with all their beauty, can do no more than 
stimulate, inspire, direct, and fix mental action. This 



1 68 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

action may be right, or wrong. If right, it leads up- 
ward to all that is good, true, and beautiful. If wrong, 
it leads down to falsehood, wickedness, and sin. No 
teacher should say, " I train the intellect," and leave 
moral and spiritual teaching to others. Every act of 
the teacher, his manner, attitude, character, all that he 
does, or says, all that he calls upon his pupils to do or 
say, develops in a degree, moral or immoral tendencies. 
I am aware that this is a very strong statement. I may 
not be able to prove it, entirely to your satisfaction, but 
I believe it with all my heart, and will try to give you 
reasons for the faith that is in me. 

First, and foremost of the habits to be acquired, is 
that of self-control, and to self-control, we shall all 
agree, every act in educating the child should lead. 
The vices that ruin mankind, are the baneful fruitage of 
the lack of self-control ; and generous, humanity-loving 
people, spend millions to mitigate the evils arising from 
this lack. An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of 
cure ! One dollar, spent for Kindergartens, will do 
more in the cause of temperance, than thousands for 
reform schools, or Washingtonian homes. The mind 
is controlled by three causes. First, by the will of 
another. Second, by one's own desire, whether right 
or wrong. Third, by reason ; i.e., that a course of 
action is knowingly right, and therefore must be taken. 
As I said, in the talk upon school government, the 
mother and teacher must be the will of the child, until 
the child's reason, or knowledge of right, leads it to do 
right acts. Otherwise, its own unreasoning desire will 
govern the will from the first. I have known many a 



MORAL TRAINING. 169 

child, tired and jaded by the care of controlling its 
parents, which control began, when it first cried for a 
light, and got it ; and continued, up to the time that it 
came under the influence of the sweet strong will of a 
kind-hearted teacher ; I have known such children, to 
act as though a great burden was rolled from their little 
shoulders, as they sat and worked, at last in perfect 
peace, and quietness ; but alas, only to go home and 
resume the reins of government ! The child finds true 
happiness alone, under the dominion of a firm, steady, 
reasonable will outside of himself. 

But there is a dangerous and delicate point, beyond 
which, the will of the parent or teacher must not be 
carried. The moment a child can act from a dictate of his 
own reason, that tells him something is right, the super- 
imposed will of the parent should give way to the child's 
own volition. The law, that we learn to do by doing, 
comes in here with full force. The importance of 
training the will by developing the knowledge of right, 
cannot be overrated. The knowledge of right, comes 
from leading the mind to discover the truth. The truth 
is of no use, unless it is expressed in action. The op- 
portunities for this action, at home, and in school, 
are innumerable. These opportunities should be seized 
upon, and used, by the mother or teacher, as means of 
training self-control. I cannot repeat often enough, the 
great truth, that we learn to do by doing. Tf a child be 
selfish, he has acquired the habit by selfish acts. The 
wrong tendency may, it is true, be inborn, but the 
habit, is acquired by selfish doing. A bad habit can be 
cured, only, by repetitions of good acts, directly op- 



170 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

posed to it. Thus, a selfish child, may be given many 
opportunities to perform benevolent, and generous acts. 
Cruelty, may be turned into loving-kindness and mercy, 
in the same way. In the school, we find all the primary 
elements of society, but lacking the conventionalities 
of the grown-up world ; and here, the child acts out his 
nature, freely. The eager, searching eye of the teacher, 
fixed upon the good of the child's soul, rather than the 
quantity of knowledge to be gained ; sees through the 
mass of her little ones, into the weakness of each in- 
dividual. The order, the writing, the reading, the 
number lessons, the play-ground, all furnish countless 
occasions, where the child may be led to act in the right 
way, from right motives. Selfishness may be turned to 
benevolence, cruelty to love, deceit to honesty, sullen- 
ness to cheerfulness, conceit to humility, and obstinacy 
to compliance, by the careful leading of the child's 
heart to the right emotion. But, in this work, the 
most responsible of all human undertakings, we cannot 
afford to experiment ; there is one indispensable re- 
quirement, — the teacher must know the child, and its nature. 

The true method of teaching, is the exact adaptation 
of the subject taught, or means of growth, to the learn- 
ing mind. The mind can best grow, in only one way. 
If the adaptation of the subject to the mind is wrong, 
the action of the mind is impaired, and weakened, by 
ineffectual attempts to grasp it ; and then the will of 
the teacher is obliged to come in, with artificial stimu- 
lants — to unhealthy mental action. Under such con- 
ditions, real essential happiness, that must come from 
the child's right emotions, is wanting ; and the subject 



MORAL TRAINING. 171 

becomes in itself, an object of dislike and disgust to the 
child. Such teaching, I hold, must be, of its very- 
nature, immoral. On the other hand, when the mind 
is in the full tide of healthy normal action, when it loves 
what it does, and does what it loves, the leading power 
of the teacher, in right directions, is enhanced to an 
incalculable degree. If the teacher knows the child, 
and her heart lies close to the child's heart, every motion 
of his mental and moral pulse, every desire to do wrong, 
or right, will always be felt by her. However much the 
teacher may desire to help the child, however strong her 
own moral or religious feelings may be, wrong methods, 
and misapplied teaching, stand as formidable barriers be- 
tween herself and the child. Many a father, who would 
have given his life for his boy, simply because he did not 
understand his child's nature, has failed in his method 
of training, and driven the boy to ruin. The will of a 
parent, may deprive the child of the use of his reason so 
long, that when the controlling will is removed, the 
child finds himself weak, and helpless ; a prey to any 
stronger will that may chose to master him. 

Primary education consists, as I have said, in training 
the power of attention. The attractiveness of the 
object attended to, controls the will. The desire to 
attend, is thus aroused, making it possible for the mind 
to exert more and more power in such acts, until the 
reason comes in to govern the will, enabling the mind 
to concentrate itself whenever required. The boy who 
is trained to solve a difficult problem, by a long and 
labored struggle with the thought, stimulated only, by 
the desire that comes from former successes to gain a 



172 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

new victory, has a will trained by reason in a high 
degree. You may say that this boy, notwithstanding 
his power in one direction, might perform immoral acts ; 
and you are right. The energy generated in one direc- 
tion, if it be not broadened and deepened in all other 
right ways, may be fatal to the welfare of the possessor. 
Lead and train a child to do one good thing thoroughly, 
through love of doing, and you have a central force of 
moral power, that can be turned into all doing. 

Let us look for a moment on the other side of this 
question. God has so created the mind, that healthy 
moral, mental, and physical exercise, produces pleasure ; 
this truth, I believe, cannot be gainsaid If the work 
be not adapted to the grasp of the pupil, this pleasurable 
stimulant is lacking, and artificial stimulants must be 
used. I have discussed, in a former talk, the use of fear 
in governing children. I need but appeal to all those, 
into whose heads knowledge has been driven by the 
terror of punishment, to obtain the strongest testimony, 
that such a course invariably disgusts children with 
learning, and defeats the ends it seeks to promote. The 
ubiquitous croaker now arises, with his single, ever 
reiterated poser : " Webster, Clay, Sumner, and all our 
greatest, were educated in the old ways, why require 
better methods when we can point to such results as 
these ?" My dear sir ; you can count, it is true, a few 
saved and successful men and women, but is your 
power of calculation great enough, to count the failures, 
the lost ? It is time for us, teachers, to call a halt ! 
All about us are men and women, who find themselves, 
to-day, crippled, for want of that power which their 



MORAL TRAINING. 



73 



school-training should have given them. You feel the 
same lack, and so do I. Now, these men and women, 
have risen up, and are demanding better things for their 
children. We have but to look, to see the hand-writing 
on the wall, — "Thou art weighed in the balances, and 
art found wanting." 

The other artificial stimulant, is the hope of reward, 
in the shape of merits, per cents, prizes ; — glittering 
empty baubles ; sugar-coated but bitter pills ! I have 
not time to point out, in detail, the immoral influences 
of these false stimulants. I will allude to one, and that 
is, the common tendency in examinations to appro- 
priate other's earnings. How common this is, you all 
know, from primary school to college. Ponies, cuffs, 
hidden slips of paper, sly glances at books, promptings, 
and the thousand and one means to present stolen 
results ; all testify to the prevalence of this evil. This 
is nothing more nor less than systematic training in 
habits of dishonesty. I have no doubt, that many of 
the frauds and defalcations, so common at present in 
this country, may be traced directly back to the well- 
meant, but dishonest training in the school-room. 

Truth should govern the will, and the great work of 
the teacher is, to guide the child in his discoveries of 
truth. The habit of searching, finding, and using the 
truth, then, is one of the first importance. Truth sets 
the child free, and leads him to the source of all 
truth. The highest freedom is obedience to God. 
The learning of words, and pages of the text-books, 
without the privilege of verifying the facts and gener- 
alizations there given, weakens the reasoning power, 



174 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

that should be developed for the purpose of con- 
trolling the will. I do not here refer to religious 
truths, but to the habit of seeking and prizing the 
truth, wherever found in the branches taught in our 
common schools. If this habit is formed there, it will 
be carried into the affairs of politics, and society. For 
instance ; a man so trained, will vote, not because he 
happens to belong to a party, or because he believes the 
ipse dixit of a leader ; but because, through force of 
habit, he will discover from all the sources of informa- 
tion that lie in his power, what the truth really is, and 
exercise his right to vote accordingly. " Put that you 
would have the State, into the school," is an old 
German maxim. Americans must learn to apply this 
saying, in a vigorous way, or our, politics, from their 
downward tendency, will reach, in no far distant day, 
their lowest level. 

There are two factors in education ; — thought, and 
expression. Most teaching, is the training of the skill 
to express thought, with little or no regard to the 
thought itself. Precision, is an indispensable mode of 
training skill in writing, drawing, position, and accurate 
ways of acting ; but, when the training of precision is 
made the main motive of school-work ; when the ways 
a child sits, places his feet, holds his hands, stares at a 
book, stands up, marches, utters a sentence, etc. are 
the be all. and end all. in the teacher's plan of work ; 
then, precision invades the sacred realm of thought 
evolution, and the mind's power to act, is crushed and 
crippled. I have seen schools of this description, where 
the results would be grand, if the systematic clock-work- 



MORAL TRAINING. 175 

like operations were performed with puppets, instead of 
living human beings. Such training, educates the 
willing followers of demagogues ; prompt to march 
when the commanding boss gives the word. 

Conceit, is another outgrowth of this quantity ideal. 
The spectacle is a common one, of a young man, the 
model of his class, persistent and alert, possessed of a 
powerful verbal memory, which enables him to cram 
page after page of the text-book, distancing all com- 
petitors, carrying off all the class honors, and finally ; 
armed with his sheepskin, [his Alma Mater's gracious 
indorsement of his wonderful attainments] confidently 
stepping out into the world, never questioning but that 
he will conquer in the new life, as easily as he did in the 
old. But the first spear-thrust of reality, shivers his 
panoply of empty words, and leaves him defenceless, 
before the rigorous demands of an uncompromising 
world. " The long perspective of our life is truth, and 
not a show ;" and I hold that sort of teaching, in the 
highest degree immoral, which crams the heads of our 
children, with the unusable pages of text-books, and 
then leads them to suppose that they are gaining real 
knowledge. By making quantity our ideal, we develop 
and foster conceit ; and conceit is one of the most 
formidable barriers to true knowledge. 

Inspire them to seek earnestly for the truth, and 
develop in them, one of the greatest of all human 
virtues — humility. " The meek shall inherit the earth," 
said the Great Teacher. He alone is really learning, 
who feels the immensity of the truth, and realizes that 
all he knows, or can know, in this world, is but as a drop 



176 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

to the great ocean of truth, that stretches boundless and 
fathomless into eternity. The teacher, above all others, 
should constantly be adding to his store of knowledge ; 
and he who imagines that he has no more to learn in 
the art of teaching, is fit only, to take his small place 
among other fossils. 

Primary education consists, as I have repeatedly 
tried to show, in the development of the power of at- 
tention ; and it will be plain to all, that the selection 
of the objects of thought and attention, is a matter of 
the highest importance. The things presented must be 
pure, good, and beautiful, for that to which we attend, 
comes into the heart, and forms the basis of all our 
thinking and imagination ; " Out of the heart the 
mouth speaketh." Where shall we look for the highest 
source of the good, the true, and the beautiful ? To 
the thoughts of God in nature. The study of nature, 
is the best and highest foundation for morality, and a 
preparation for the revealed truth, that comes to the 
child later in life. Compare the drill upon hieroglyph- 
ics, empty words, and meaningless forms, to the ob- 
servation of trees, flowers, animals, and the forms of 
earth. The one stimulates thought, and fills the mind 
with ideas of beauty ; the other crowds the mind with 
useless, ugly forms ; that cannot, from their very nature, 
stimulate it to renewed action. A child's mind, filled 
with that which is pure, and good, has no room for 
wickedness and sin. The study of the natural sciences, 
is one of the best means of bringing about this result. 
Did you ever observe the character of a boy who early 
fell in love with nature, and who spent his spare hours 



MORAL TRAINING. 1 77 

with plants, or animals, seeking for their haunts, 
watching their habits, and making collections for pres- 
ervation ? Such boys, so far as I have known, are 
genuinely good. They have neither the time, nor the 
inclination, for evil doing. The study of the thoughts 
of God in nature, filling the mind, as it does, with 
things of beauty, prepares the imagination for clear and 
strong conceptions of the higher and spiritual life. 

Let no one misunderstand me, or imagine for a mo- 
ment, that I mean to limit moral training to these sub- 
jects. Far from it. I am only trying to show, how all 
these things may be used in developing true character. 
Children learn very much by imitation. The teacher, 
whether good or bad, leaves his everlasting imprint on 
every child under his care. He can conceal nothing 
from the intuitional power of the child. Whatever you 
are, becomes immortal through the souls of your 
pupils. The precepts of a true teacher, have immense 
weight ; but the example has a still greater. 

A fact very much bemoaned and bewailed in these 
times, is, that children love to read trashy literature ; 
that they read Dime Novels, sensational newspapers, 
and stories like, The Robber of the Bloody Gulch ; or 
The Red Handed Pirate of the Spanish Main. This un- 
wholesome, and vicious tendency, is almost wholly 
caused, I believe, by the neglect of school authorities to 
furnish a generous supply of pure, interesting literature, 
to the schools under their charge. I know a superin- 
tendent of schools, who often waxes eloquent over the 
vices engendered by such reading. I once visited his 
schools, and found his pupils learning to spell column 



178 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

after column, and page after page of words, one-tenth 
of which, they probably never would use in their livesd 
I satisfied myself that these poor victims hardly knew 
the meaning of one word, the forms of which they were 
struggling over. The money expended for those 
spelling-books, would have purchased a rich supply of 
excellent reading ; and the time thrown away in con- 
ning that fearful book, if used in reading the best 
literature, would have rendered unnecessary some of 
that superintendent's eloquent, and pathetic periods, in 
regard to the miseries caused by reading sensational 
works. An entire year of the little child's life, is gener- 
ally given to the reading of one book, not much thicker 
than my little finger. Let a child read a selection twice 
or three times, and he knows every word by heart. He 
can read his lesson with the book upside down, after 
that. I once tested one of the best schools in this 
country. The pupils read very well indeed, I asked 
them to close their books ; and as soon as they under- 
stood what I wanted, they repeated every word, verbatim, 
with great gusto, simply by my reading one word, any- 
where in the book. They knew that book from begin- 
ning to end ; and yet, following the course of study, 
they must repeat those words, over and over again, for 
five long months ! We are paying millions of dollars, in 
this country, for such worse than stupid and useless 
repetitions. A class will read a Primary Reader 
through, in a very short time. The cost of a dozen 
different series of books [bought by the school authori- 
ties] is not so great as the price paid, by the children, 
for the Readers of a single series. Every school can, 



MORAL TRAINING. 1 79 

| and should have a good library, made of sets of different 
Jpbooks, embracing ; the best Readers ; works on natural 
history adapted to children, such as, Prang's little 
books, " Little Folks in Feathers and Fur," " Life and 
Her Children," and " The Fairyland of Science ;" 
primary geographies, like " Our World," and Guyot's 
" Introduction ;" histories ; books of travel ; poetry ; 
and the best fiction. In my experience, it is the easiest 
of all problems, to lead children to read, and to love to 
read, the very best literature. If the hours devoted to 
the spelling-book ; to useless repetitions of words 
already learned ; were spent in the perusal of the best 
books, children would never feel the necessity for the 
trash they read, whose baneful influence is immeasur- 
able. 

In my talk upon School Government, I said, that the 
end and aim of school education, is to train a child to 
work, to work systematically, to love work, and to put 
his brains into work. The clearest expression of 
thought, is expression in the concrete. Working with 
the hands, is one great means of primary development 
It is also one of the very best means of moral training 
From the first, every child has an intense desire to ex 
press his thought in some other way, than in language 
Froebel discovered this, and founded the Kindergarten 
No one can deny, that true Kindergarten training is 
moral training. Ideas and thoughts come into the 
mind, demanding expression. The use of that which 
is expressed, to the child, is the means it gives him, to 
compare his thought, with its concrete expression. The 
expression of the form made, compared with the ideal, 



180 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

stimulates to further trials. In making and building, is 
found the best means of training attention. 

I wish to make a sharp distinction here, between real 
work, and drudgery. Real work is done on real things, 
producing tangible results, results that are seen and felt. 
Real work is adapted at every step to the child's power 
to do. Every struggle brings success, and makes better 
work possible. Drudgery, on the other hand, is the forced 
action of the mind, upon that which is beyond mental 
grasp ; upon words that cannot be apprehended, upon 
lessons not understood. Drudgery, consists, mainly, of 
the monotonous use of the verbal memory. There is no 
variety ; not a bush or shrub along the pathway. This 
is the kind of study that produces ill-health. It is the 
straining of the mind upon disliked subjects, with the 
single motive, to gain applause, rewards, and diplomas. 
Thousands, of nervous, earnest, faithful girls, spurred on 
by unwise parents, yearly lose their lives, or become 
hopeless invalids, in this costly and useless struggle. 
Real work, stimulates every activity of mind and body. 
It furnishes the variety, so necessary to interest, and is 
like true physical development, that exercises every 
muscle and strengthens the whole man. Real work is 
always interesting, like real play. No matter how 
earnest the striving may be, it is followed by a glow of 
genuine pleasurable emotion. 

There is great outcry against our schools and colleges, 
caused by the suspicion that they educate children to be 
above manual labor. This suspicion is founded upon 
fact, I am sorry to say ; but the statement of the fact is 
not correct. Children are educated below manual labor. 



MORAL TRAINING. 1S1 

The vague, meaningless things they learn, are not 
adapted to real work ; no effectual habits of labor are 
formed by rote-learning. The student's desire is too 
often, when he leaves school or college, to get a living by 
means of empty words. The world has little or no use 
for such rubbish. That man should gain his bread by 
the sweat of his brow, is a curse changed to the highest 
possible blessing. The clergyman, the lawyer, the phy- 
sician, the teacher, need the benefit of an early training 
in manual labor, quite as much as the man who is to 
labor with his hands all his life. Manual labor is the 
foundation of clear thinking, sound imagination, and 
good health. There should be no real difference between 
the methods of our common schools, and the methods of 
training in manual labor schools. A great mistake has 
been made in separating them. All school work should 
be real work. We learn to do by doing. " Satan finds 
some mischief still, for idle hands to do." The direct in- 
fluence of real work is, to absorb the attention in the 
things to be done ; leaving no room in the consciousness 
for idleness, and its consequent vices. Out of real work, 
the child develops a motive, that directs his life work. 
Doing work thoroughly, has a great moral influence. 
One piece of work well done, one subject well mastered, 
makes the mind far stronger and better, than a smatter- 
ing of all the branches taught in our schools. School 
work, and manual labor, have been for a long time 
divorced ; I predict that the time is fast coming, when 
they will be joined in indissoluble bonds. The time too, 
is coming, when ministers will urge upon their hearers, 
the great importance of manual labor, as a means of 



1 82 NOTES OF TALKS ON TEACHING. 

spiritual growth. At no distant date, industrial rooms 
will become an indispensable part of every good school ; 
the work of the head, and skill of the hand, will be joined 
in class-room, and workshop, into one comprehensive 
method of developing harmoniously the powers of body, 
mind, and soul. If you would develop morality in the 
child, train him to work. 

In all that I have said, and whatever mistakes I have 
made, either in thought or expression, I have had but 
one motive in my heart, and that is, that the dear 
children of our common country, may receive at our 
hands, a development of intellectual, moral, and spiritual 
power, that will enable them to fight life's battle, to be 
thoughtful conscientious citizens, and prepare them for 
all that may come thereafter. Whatever we would have 
our pupils, we must be ourselves. 



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Dr. DUDLEY A. SARGENT, Director of the Hemenway Gymnasium, Harvard 
University. Subject : Physical Development. 

Rev. A. D. MAYO. Subjects: Common Schools ; Schools in the South. 

Prof. H. H. STRAIGHT, Oswego Normal School. Subject: Industrial and 
Scientific Education. 

Prof. HERMANN B. BOISEN. Subjects: Methods in Teaching Modern Lan- 
guages ; Froebel and Pestalozzi. 

Prof. H. E. HOLT, Director of Music in the Boston Public Schools. Subject: 
Method of Teaching Music. 

SAMUEL T. DUTTON, Supt. Schools, New Haven, Ct. Subject: Supervision. 
H. P. WARREN, Principal New Hampshire Normal School. Subject : Methods 
of Teaching History. 

Miss LELIA E. PATRIDGE. Subjects: Physical Training in Common Schools ; 
We Girls. 

Mrs. FRANCIS W. PARKER, formerly of the Boston University School of 
Oratory and the Boston School of Oratory. (Mrs. M. Frank Stuart.) Subject: 
The Delsarte System of Expression. 



TECHNICAL TRAINING. 

Mrs. ALICE H. PUTNAM, Kindergarten. 

Mrs. MARY D. HICKS, Drawing. 

Prof. L. A. BUT1ERFIELD, Phonics. 

Miss LELIA E. PA TRIDGE, Gymnastics. 

Mrs. FRANCIS W. PARKER, Reading. 

W. P. BEECH I NG Photography for Teachers. 

ALEXANDER E. FRYE, Moulding in Geography. 

Fifteen Lessons in Psychology, by FRANCIS W. PARKER. 
Apply for Circulars to 

Prof. B. W. PUTNAM, 

Jamaica Plains, Boston, Muss. 



o 






IN PREPARATION. 



THE QUINCY METHODS, 



LELIA E. PATRIDGE. 



This book will be ready for publication in a few 
months, and will illustrate the principles and theories 
advanced in the ''Talks," as practically applied in 
the Quincy Schools. 

Miss Patridge has spent several months in Quincy, 
and the book will consist largely of pen photographs 
of actual lessons. 



E. L. KELLOGG & CO., Publishers, 

21 Park Place, 










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